Whole-of-organization approach to climate leadership
In 2011, Mohawk College implemented a program to reduce carbon emissions, which included working with students, faculty and staff to establish composting programs and community gardens. Since then, the college has applied a number of strategies to look at greening the curriculum across all programs. supplied
Mohawk College has a bold and innovative approach to climate action that has made it a leader at the local, provincial and national levels. Mohawk was Ontario’s first college to implement an environmental management plan, and it developed Canada’s first institutional building certified as net-zero in design and operation.
Now the college in Hamilton, Ontario, is embedding sustainability into the curriculum of all its programs, under a climate action plan that ensures every Mohawk graduate can be a climate leader.
“The impact of an educational institution such as Mohawk College extends well beyond its operations,” says Cebert Adamson, vice-president academic of the college, which has some 30,000 students across five campuses. “Our objective is to ensure that all learners, irrespective the discipline they’re in, leave here with a keen sense of how they can contribute to a greener, cleaner environment.”
He notes that the climate action plan expands Mohawk’s climate leadership through its operations, behaviours, academic offerings, Indigenous connections, research and partnerships.
“Our objective is to ensure that all learners, irrespective the discipline they’re in, leave here with a keen sense of how they can contribute to a greener, cleaner environment.”
The college implemented a program in 2011 to reduce carbon emissions, which included changing lightbulbs to LED and working with students, faculty and staff to establish composting programs and community gardens. Local companies such as ArcelorMittal-Dofasco, Canada’s leading manufacturer of steel, became partners in the effort to make the city cleaner. In 2018, Mohawk opened the award-winning Joyce Centre for Partnership & Innovation, which is entirely off the grid. It houses the Centre for Climate Change Management, which has applied research opportunities around decarbonization and works with the Bay Area Climate Change Council looking at ways to green the environment.
The new plan includes establishing a School of Climate Action, which will serve as a hub of innovation at Mohawk. It includes the Gina Fraser Chair in Skilled Trades for the Green Economy, which will conduct research with an interdisciplinary focus, the first position of its kind at a Canadian college.
The plan also commits the college to net-zero operations by 2035, and Mohawk College President Paul Armstrong says it has committed to an 80 per cent achievement by 2030.
Mr. Armstrong has a history at Mohawk dating back to the 1980s, when he was a student there. He returned as a faculty member and was chief operating officer as the college moved to think more holistically about the issue of climate change. “My feeling was that to really make a big impact, we needed to think more broadly, and that the legacy of what we were going to do really relied on having the right sets of programs, the right research areas.”
The climate action plan is “the enabling tool for how we’re going to advance our different priorities on a broad level,” Mr. Armstrong explains. It has three pillars, one focused on the carbon net-zero targets for its campuses, while the others involve educational initiatives. One will deliver programming that is credentialed as well as at the upskilling and reskilling level, through the School of Climate Action, while the other is focused on providing industry support through applied research.
The college has implemented a number of strategies to look at greening the curriculum across all programs, says Mr. Armstrong. It leads a national coalition of 15 colleges and institutions called Canadian Colleges for a Resilient Recovery, which has deployed 147 new micro-credentials, short upskilling courses that have already been taken by some 17,000 people across Canada.
Mohawk has a long history of innovation, Mr. Armstrong says; for example, it introduced co-op education to the college system in Canada in 1969, and climate action is an important area to show leadership. “Our ultimate job is to support our employers and our students and to make sure they’re relevant. We need to drive the changes in the workforce that are going to get our employers where they need to go.”
David Santi, dean of the School of Skilled Trades & Apprenticeships and acting dean of the School of Climate Action, says there is currently a gap in the green skills and competencies needed to support Canada’s transition to decarbonization. “If the country wants to be a leader in this area, we need to demonstrate that we have prepared the workforce.”
Mohawk has programs ready to deliver in high-demand areas, which will evolve to meet the requirements of business and industry, he says. For example, there is a need for “circular design” to ensure that products are developed to have the longest life cycle, reducing their impact on the environment. The school’s programs will be delivered in online, full-time and part-time courses, Mr. Santi adds.
Dr. Adamson says Mohawk is building green competencies needed from both a Western and an Indigenous perspective, which it calls a “two-eyed seeing approach,” working with its Centre for Indigenous Relations, Knowledge and Learning. He says the goal is to “train real sustainability leaders” by giving students in fields from business and hospitality to health and construction a green mindset.
The college’s overall objective is to “ensure we have the right programs delivered the right way for students and that the employers are going to have the workforce with the skill set they need,” Mr. Armstrong adds.
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