This seminar is hosted by the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, an Oxford Martin
School Institute

Speaker: Professor John Robinson, Associate Provost, Sustainability and Professor, Institute for Resources, Environment & Sustainability and Department of Geography, University of British Columbia (UBC)

Summary: The entire University of British Columbia's (Vancouver, Canada) campus is a living laboratory for sustainability, a 402-hectare "societal test-bed" in which researchers, students, operational staff and private- and public-sector partners can build, test, learn, teach, apply, and share the outcomes of their inquiries.

In November 2011, UBC opened North America’s greenest building, the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS), one of only a handful of buildings worldwide that will provide "net positive" benefits to the environment. It reduces UBC’s carbon emissions, powers itself and a neighboring building with renewable and waste energy, creates drinking water from rain and treats wastewater onsite.

CIRS is one of four flagship projects – valued collectively at more than $150 million – that will help UBC to achieve the most aggressive carbon-reduction targets at any major research university: a 33 per cent reduction in Vancouver campus institutional GHG emissions by 2015, a 67 per cent reduction by 2020 and 100 per cent by 2050. It is also a physical hub for the University’s efforts to deeply integrate academic and operational sustainability on campus and ensure any student, regardless of their area of study, can earn up to a minor in sustainability.

Venue: Seminar Room, 64 Babury Road, Oxford

All welcome, please bring your own lunch.