A look at Mt.A’s renewed Environmental Issues Committee
In a move to reduce environmental impacts, Mt. A has re-emphasized its commitment to environmental leadership. As part of Mt.A’s new Strategic Plan, the University has established a refreshed Environmental Issues Committee, a diverse advisory group tasked with guiding sustainability efforts on campus and beyond. The committee, which includes staff, students, faculty, and members of the greater Sackville community, serves as one of Mt.A’s outlets for environmental dialogue and policy review. While the Environmental Issues Committee was originally founded in institutional policy over a decade ago, its renewal demonstrates heightened institutional focus at a moment of intense environmental challenges.
The roots of the current committee trace back to Policy 2102: Mt.A’s Environmental Policy, first approved in 1999 and last revised in April 2012. This policy lays out a broad framework for environmental performance across eight sectors: emission reduction, transportation, water, waste, food, paper, grounds, and buildings. It was within this structured policy that the Environmental Issues Committee first gained formal standing as an official branch of Mt.A senate. The 2012 version of Policy 2102 outlined a set of goals. These include educating the University community about environmental concerns and fostering communication between the University and broader community while sharing initiatives with other academic institutions. Finally, the policy highlights environmental course offerings, conducts periodic reviews of the environmental policy, and reports on annual environmental audits to the president. Committee membership included representatives from administration, faculty, students, and the community, with the chair appointed by the University President Ian. Sutherland. This earlier structure reflected a desire to embed environmental oversight into regular governance processes. The policy anticipated annual audits, often completed by students, would help Mt.A track progress against measurable targets and highlight areas where performance could improve.
Currently, Mt.A’s website lists the Environmental Issues Committee as an active and ongoing group tasked with similar responsibilities as were outlined in the 2012 policy, but with a more visible emphasis on collaboration and innovation. Today’s iteration is less technical and more about community-driven progress. The committee will continue to educate and engage the campus around sustainability topics. As well, the committee will serve as a bridge between university efforts and broader community interests, both locally and across other Maritime universities.
The committee’s composition, including expanded student representation and community voices, underscores Mt.A’s belief that environmental challenges require multi-stakeholder solutions. The group’s mandate still includes reviewing policy and reporting audits, but with a more dynamic role in shaping the conversation around climate action on and off campus.
As universities must adapt to increasing ecological footprints, Mt.A’s Environmental Issues Committee represents a model of both continuity and renewal. Grounded in the institution’s policy and revitalized by contemporary urgency, the committee is prepared to lead a more environmentally sustainable approach to university policy.
One Response
Framing the long delayed reinstatement of the Environmental Issues Committee as commitment to environmental leadership is greenwashing when Mount Allison continues to fail at the most basic sustainability metrics and is actively working against calls for climate justice from within the institution. For many years, Mount Allison has failed to report any emissions or other numerical sustainability metrics in part because Mount Allison fails to have numerical targets. Despite what the emissions reduction policy 2101 states, there was no setting of targets in the timeline presented in that policy. 76.2% of Canadian universities have numerical greenhouse gas emissions targets and net-zero year targets, while Mount Allison has none. Mount Allison is also failing at having a real structural commitment to any kind of meaningful change. The change that is necessary to drastically reduce emissions will not come primarily from a committee of volunteers and it is crucial the actual climate change staff is hired. Mount Allison is in desperate need of an Office of Sustainability and at minimum a climate change coordinator and energy specialist need to be hired and be full time non student positions. 67.9% of Canadian universities already have climate change staff and it is the universities that do who are making real progress because permanent staff are needed for structural change. We are far past the point of needing conversations and raising awareness about environmental issues on campus. The issues are extremely clear and we need a university that will actually commit to taking the necessary action. For example, divesting the five million dollars of our endowment that is invested in the top 200 fossil fuel companies, committing to real emissions auditing through the standardized STARS system, and conducting an energy audit of campus- the first step in creating scientifically based emissions targets and assessing the feasibility of various pathways in order to develop a climate plan, a serious of actionable steps and projects to achieve a net-zero campus and other holistic climate justice initiatives (70.2% of Canadian universities already have this), which will certainly need community input in the development of and the Environmental Issues Committee will have a role in facilitating that, but the committee itself restarting after it fell apart during COVID is in no way a radical or monumental step. Mount Allison needs to commit to real climate leadership, although at this point it will be more like climate catching up with what everyone has been doing for years.