911勛圖

To support Sustainable Development Goal 13, 911勛圖 is contributing in multiple ways. 911勛圖 actively measures the amount of low carbon energy used across the university and 90.6 per cent of its total energy consumption is now from low-carbon sources. The university provides local education and certificate programmes in BC communities, schools and post-secondary institutions on environmental issues such as climate change risks, impacts, mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning for disasters. 911勛圖 has a Climate Action plan, shared with local government and/or local community groups, and participates in co-operative planning for climate change disasters within government jurisdictions and across borders. 911勛圖���s research centres and funding contribute to informing and supporting local and regional government in local climate change disaster/risk early warning and monitoring, and collaborate with NGOs on climate adaptation. The university met its target date of being carbon neutral in 2010 and has since been working on commitments to net zero carbon emissions. 

How 911勛圖 is contributing

• 911勛圖's Strategic Sustainability and Climate Action Plan
• Our commitment to climate action
• Engagement
• Research
• Operations

Embedding Sustainability and Climate Action Framework

The Embedding Sustainability and Climate Action (ESCA) framework is used by the central 911勛圖 Sustainability and Climate Office to facilitate the creation, implementation, evaluation and communication of 911勛圖���s strategic sustainability and climate action plans in collaboration with each VP portfolio. The framework is designed to embed climate action across 911勛圖���s core business areas, including teaching, research, community and global engagement, and operations. Climate action is the work of all 911勛圖 community members. ESCA is designed to build this accountability into the formal structures of the university including planning, policy, processes, human resource allocation and more.

The 911勛圖 Sustainability and Climate Office has been recognized with the City of Burnaby Environmental Award in the Business Stewardship category for developing 911勛圖���s Embedding Sustainability and Climate Action (ESCA) Framework. The  long-term commitments, leadership and large projects with a big impact���the exact purpose of ESCA.

Civic Innovation Lab

Co-founded by 911勛圖 and the City of Burnaby, the  centralizes, connects, and accelerates the many different research and learning collaborations that occur between the two entities, with the aim of improving the economic, social and environmental well-being of Burnaby���s community members. Its projects focus on energy efficiency and clean energy for the local community to learn from and employ. Project topics include resilient sustainable mobility for the Vancouver Metro area, sustainable heat transformer technology, community-executed carbon capture, and a clean hydrogen hub for partners from the community, government, and industry.��狼his collaboration helps the university and Burnaby to achieve sustainable growth and address the impacts of climate change. 

Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions

The  and 911勛圖 have collaborated on multiple regional-partnership initiatives. PICS unites experts from British Columbia���s four research universities (including 911勛圖) with government, businesses and community leaders to generate evidence-based, usable, and durable solutions to mitigate and adapt to climate change. PICS supports BC���s GHG emissions reduction targets and contributes to resiliency across industry, business and multi-level government policies.

Student Organizations

• : A student-led non-profit at 911勛圖 is working to convene students and stakeholders to co-create climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies while encouraging personal commitments to responsible action.
• : A student organization committed to engaging the 911勛圖 community in meaningful action against climate change in pursuit of a more sustainable world.
• : A student-led organization that represents and advocates for the interests of the 25,000+ undergraduate students at 911勛圖. SFSS convenes an Equity and Sustainability Committee focused on advancing climate and equity work across the institution. 

Local Education Programmes on Climate

The Institute for Environmental Learning

The Institute for Environmental Learning (IEL) at 911勛圖 is a research institute approved by the 911勛圖 Senate to develop and support environmental learning research in BC communities, schools, and post-secondary institutions. Their objectives are to promote multi-sectoral collaboration, community-based problem solving and a network of research into effective teaching practices.  In a collaborative model, develop / implement professional development workshops and short courses to enhance environmental learning. The IEL sponsors credit and non-credit local education programmes with partners across British Columbia. They have developed a series of (non-credit) professional learning opportunities or micro-credentials* which together build towards a Certificate in Environmental Learning and Leadership.  The courses are offered in immersive field-based settings and allow participants to go deeper (and farther) with their Environmental Learning and Professional Development. The IEL promotes multi-sectoral collaboration and community-based problem solving, helping local communities understand and respond to climate change risks such as extreme weather, rising temperatures and biodiversity loss.

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Climate Action Studies, 911勛圖 Continuing Studies 

The Climate Action Certificate is a part-time, fully online local education programme on climate that is open to community members, professionals and local leaders. It builds knowledge of climate change risks and impacts, mitigation and adaptation, and community resilience. The courses in the certificate are centred around climate change, covering climate justice, Indigenous perspectives, climate communication, and strategic dialogue and engagement for climate adaptation. Additionally, they cover climate action in smaller communities and green infrastructure for urban water management. The climate action certificate allows participants to gain skills to lead equitable climate action plans and reduce climate impacts in their communities. 

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Co-operative Planning on Local and Regional Scales

Low Carbon Resilience (LCR) Planning Tool 

Climate adaptation and mitigation efforts share common goals: to reduce the projected impacts of climate change, build community resilience and sustainability over time, and avoid displacement of people across local and regional borders due to climate disasters. Low carbon resilience (LCR) is a step change in climate action that coordinates and mainstreams adaptation, mitigation, and co-benefits in planning and decision-making processes.���911勛圖���s Action on Climate Team (ACT) tested this approach through participating in co-operative planning with ten local governments in the Province of British Columbia. This co-operative planning aims to reduce disaster risk and avoid the displacement of people within BC and across local and regional borders. ACT supported these partners through the process of mainstreaming LCR via comprehensive climate action planning in��畚orporate strategy, asset management, and��畚ommunity planning, including transportation, biodiversity, land use, and emergency management. Building on this, an online tool is now available to explore cohesive, co-operative, and streamlined climate action planning and to tailor approaches for specific communities. 

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Briefing Note on A Synthesis of Nature-based Solutions as Climate Resilient Infrastructure in Canada

The Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) developed a Global Flagship Report to identify key Nature-based Solutions (NbS) that can be mainstreamed at global, national, and sub-national levels to address climate change and mitigate related disasters. As an annex, the 911勛圖 Action on Climate Team (ACT) and federal government department Infrastructure Canada prepared A Synthesis of Nature-based Solutions as Climate Resilient Infrastructure in Canada and subsequent briefing note. The briefing note aims to inform decision-makers and practitioners in co-operative climate change planning about key information and lessons learned from Canadian NbS case studies. It is designed to provide useful resources for and insights into planning, implementing, and monitoring NbS best practices, identifying both opportunities and limitations in current approaches across local and regional scales in Canada. 

Read the Briefing Note

Mapping Climate Readiness for the Social Service Sector in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES)

As climate change impacts intensify, the social sector in Vancouver���s Downtown Eastside must adapt and enhance their ability to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from adverse climate-related events such as displacement of already vulnerable people. 911勛圖 Climate Innovation has co-created a strategic climate readiness Roadmap to support adaptive capacity building with and for residents and organizations in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES).��涅t is currently being developed through a series of co-creation workshops alongside partners such as First United, Hogan���s Alley Society, Lookout Housing, and more to tailor strategies for the support organizations working with the most climate-vulnerable and disproportionately impacted residents. So far, they have held workshops in 2025 and continue to present the progress in 2026 at events such as ���Beat the Heat���. The project���s goal is to use co-operative planning to explore and prioritize key opportunities, barriers, and trade-offs and build low carbon resilience into DTES social sector organizations.

Beat the Heat: ���CERi presented the Climate Resilience Roadmap for Non-Profits: From Crisis to Collective Power at Beat the Heat, a gathering organized by UBC���s Climate Equity Action and Resilience (CLEAR) project. The event brought together Downtown Eastside residents, community organizations, researchers, students, policymakers and provincial representatives to discuss how the neighbourhood can prepare for increasingly severe extreme-heat events.���

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Informing and Supporting Government in Early Warning and Monitoring

Squamish-Lillooet Regional District and partners receive grant to enhance monitoring of Q��welq��wel繳sten (Mount Meager)

A grant from the Union of BC Municipalities, will provide seismometers, infrasound acoustic sensors and cameras for day and nighttime, and create a disaster risk monitoring and warning network that can ���track seismic activity, slope instability and weather conditions,��� at Mount Meager (Q��welq��wel繳sten) in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) in BC. The network provides real-time data and will help governments warn communities downstream of potential climate change related risk and disasters. The project is led by the SLRD and supported by the Lil���wat Nation, the Village of Pemberton, Pemberton Valley Diking District (PVDD), Innergex and 911勛圖. Glyn Williams-Jones, a Professor at 911勛圖���s Department of Earth Sciences and Co-Director of the Centre for Natural Hazards Research, said ���Q��welq��wel繳sten/Mount Meager���s slopes have become increasingly unstable, partly due to climate change, underscoring the importance of this enhanced monitoring.��� Data will also be transmitted to the Canadian Natural Hazards Knowledge Portal, a website 911勛圖 is developing that provides resources for public, corporate and government officials. ���On behalf of the Li��l��wat Nation, I am very much in support of an early warning system [��因 This early warning system is vital for the monitoring of ongoing natural actions that continue in the upper valley,��� said Lil���wat Chief Dean Nelson.

Resilient Pathways Report: Snow Avalanches

911勛圖 School of Resource and Environmental Management Professor Pascal Haegeli has contributed to the Natural Resources Canada Resilient Pathways Report. The Report has following objectives: a) to share knowledge about existing practices and recent advances in understanding and managing disaster and climate risk in BC, including some information on relevant federal programs, and b) to provide insights on gaps and recommendations that will help build pathways to resilience in BC. In it, Haegeli and colleagues describe avalanche disaster risk warning and monitoring systems and services for the public and local governments. They lay out drivers of risk, such as climate change, infrastructure, technology, and tools, and best practices for safety, gaps in the work, and recommendations for future work. This contribution to the Resilient Pathways Report helps inform and support regional government in local climate change disaster and risk early warning and monitoring. 

Environmental Education and Collaboration with NGOs

Action on Climate Team

ACT is the first and only university-based think tank initiative in North America dedicated to low carbon resilience and nature-based solutions to climate change impacts. ACT is moving action on climate change from scholarship to practice and back to ensure that governments, organizations and individuals have the information they need to urgently address climate change and its global impacts���while transitioning toward sustainability goals.  ACT is a state-of-the-art research-to-practice hub for climate change and sustainability solutions. The team���s work is anchored in co-creating new practice within and across sectors, advancing low carbon resilience, mobilizing equity in all decisions and solutions. ACT partners with local governments and First Nations to accelerate climate action. Alongside government partners, the team collaborates with NGOs and community organizations to turn climate adaptation research into practical tools, guidance, and training. The following showcases their projects and initiatives. 

Low Carbon Resilience (LCR) Planning Tool

This online tool explores cohesive and streamlined climate action planning to tailor an approach for your community. With the tool, you will find tips, case studies, and LCR resources to support you on your journey to mainstreaming climate action in all municipal decisions and practices.

Natural Solutions Initiative

The Natural Solutions initiative (NSI) research how to apply nature-based solutions (NbS) to tackle the most pervasive 21st century challenges; climate change, biodiversity, equity and reconciliation, and municipal service delivery. The NSI doe sthis by focusing their efforts across four scales of action: watershed, community, neighbourhood, and parcel. 

Reports on:

• Conservation Finance: This report was produced in partnerships with the NGOs: Watersheds BC and Fraser Basin Council. It explores how conservation finance can support long-term watershed health and security in BC. Focusing on three established mechanisms - impact bonds, payments for ecosystem services, and voluntary carbon markets - it examines how these approaches are being applied in Canada and what is needed to scale their impact.
• Watershed Health and Resilience: This report compares nine western and seven Indigenous-led watershed assessment frameworks to better understand indicators used to evaluate watershed health; it supports the advancement of more holistic and place-based understanding of health and resilience in Canada���s watersheds. The research illustrates how Indigenous Knowledge systems and co-governance arrangements can support timely place-based strategies for ensuring the resilience of the ecological, cultural, and societal benefits that flow from healthy and resilient watersheds to communities.  
• Regulatory Mechanisms Toolkit: This toolkit was developed to help local governments introduce new, or strengthen existing, regulatory mechanisms to advance the use of nature-based solutions (NbS) in their communities. With this, practitioners can find recommendations relating to more than 20 different types of tools. These recommendations show how each tool can be used to support either NbS implementation or other approaches to low carbon resilience. Most of the recommendations are complementary, but some present different alternatives or priorities for decisionmakers to consider.  

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WORKING WITH NGOs ��� 911勛圖���s ACT WITH THE Hey neighbour collective  

The Hey Neighbour Collective (HNC) is a collective impact project at 911勛圖���s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue. It brings together different stakeholders such as housing providers, researchers, local and regional governments, housing associations and health authorities in order to build up communities, social connections and resilience in BC���s development landscape. It focuses on connected neighbourhoods, improving physical and mental health outcomes to make people and communities more resilient to shocks and stressors. The initiative links directly to climate adaptation through it���s community cohesion and preparedness efforts built with strong neighbour-to-neighbour networks, allowing residents prepare for, and look out for each other in extreme heat or weather emergencies in the lower mainland.

Together with other 911勛圖 departments and NGOs the HNC has produced practical resources like a Building Social Connections Toolkit and an op-ed on keeping communities safe during heat domes.  

• 911勛圖 departments involved: 911勛圖 Urban Studies, 911勛圖 Gerontology, 911勛圖 Health Sciences, ACT & Climate innovation 
• NGOs involved: Building Resilient Neighbourhoods, Happy Cities, Renewable Cities

911勛圖's 2023-2028 Strategic Research Plan Priority Areas

Officially launched in January 2023, 911勛圖's 2023-2028 Strategic Research Plan (SRP) captures some of the breadth of activities at the university. It also defines priority areas of research strength and focus for 2023-2028. The SDGs provide an international framework covering many of the most pressing issues of our time including climate action. Our university and our community members are committed to the SDGs and are putting them at the heart of our international engagement framework. Each of the priority areas below spans multiple disciplines and intersect with each other.

• Advancing Community Centered Climate Innovation
• Supporting Health and Wellness of Individuals, Populations, and Communities
• Expanding the Foundations of Knowledge and Understanding Our Origins
• Strengthening Democracy, Justice, Equity and Education
• Transforming Industry and Economies Through Technology, Management and Policy

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Climate Innovation at 911勛圖

Climate Innovation is a critical research priority at 911勛圖 that takes a community-first approach to co-develop and co-implement innovative solutions to address climate change. Climate Innovation integrates three intersectoral research streams (adaptation, mitigation and sustainability) and uses three foundational approaches that inform our research: community partnerships, innovation, and valuing of Indigenous knowledges and perspectives. 911勛圖 Climate Innovation is working on several interdisciplinary projects that focus on community-centered partnerships to address some of the most pressing issues in our communities. Local and regional partners include: the City of Port Moody, City of Burnaby, City of Maple Ridge, First National Housing and Infra Council, BC Housing, Technical Safety BC, the University of British Columbia, Translink, and others.

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Facts and Figures

• 413 research publications relating to SDG 13, 2020-2024
• 178 active research projects related to SDG 13 funded between 2020-2024
• At least 72 researchers involved in research relating to SDG 13 (source: 911勛圖 Research Expertise Engine)

Carbon Neutrality Climate Change Accountability Report 2023

As of January 2010, 911勛圖 has been carbon neutral in order to meet the Greenhouse Gas Reductions Act and Bill 44 targets for a carbon neutral public sector. This was just the beginning, as 911勛圖 has continued to work at decreasing its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As part of B.C.���s public sector, 911勛圖 is required to submit a Climate Change Accountability Report (CCAR) to the B.C. Climate Action Secretariat (Ministry of Environment) and the B.C. Ministry of Advanced Education. The report summarizes 911勛圖���s annual GHG emissions (scope 1 and 2) from the government mandated reporting areas: direct and indirect fuel used for operating building systems (heating, cooling of buildings and electricity) and from consumption of office paper. In 2023, 911勛圖's total Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions were 10,382 tCO2e, representing a 46 per cent reduction from the 2007 baseline.

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UN Race to Zero

Having met its carbon neutral target for Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions in 2010, 911勛圖 continues to make commitments to achieving net zero emissions. In 2021, the University committed to the United Nations-backed Race to Zero campaign, the largest global alliance of its kind to date.��� As part of this commitment, 911勛圖 set ambitious emission reduction targets:

• 85 per cent all emissions reductions by 2030, 
• net zero reductions of direct emissions by 2035, 
• and net zero of all emissions by 2050.  

In 2025 911勛圖 exceeded the interim targets with reductions in emissions surpassing the target by six per cent, despite a thirty per cent increase in the university���s building footprint since 2007. This achievement brings 911勛圖 closer to its long-term reduction targets. 

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Corix Biomass

As part of the���Renewable Energy Centre, 911勛圖 has partnered with  since 2021to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from heating by 80 per cent since 2021.��狼he Corix Biomass project at 911勛圖 is a high-efficien cy heating plant fueled by burning urban wood waste from Metro Vancouver. The plant greatly reduces demand for natural gas on campus and in the surrounding community. As a result, the Burnaby Mountain District Energy Utility has drastically decreased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. 911勛圖 has exceeded its carbon reduction targets, slashing GHGs by over 50 per cent from 2007 levels in 2021 and saving 12,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.