We define sustainability as “enabling people to lead socially just lives within ecological limits.”
Our Passion and Direction
We recognize that inequitable resource consumption is at the heart of climate change and is an urgent global challenge. Although climate action and adaptation will remain at the forefront of our academic, operational, and partnership efforts, we will also strive to uncover the deeper systemic causes and to address other sustainability challenges.
Through shaping the knowledge and actions of our students and partners in the workplace, we aim to inspire and mobilize change across industry and society, underpinned by best practices across our campuses.
To achieve this ambition, we know that we must:
- articulate a shared understanding of our role as a polytechnic institution in being part of the solution, empowering students, faculty, and staff to contribute and make a difference;
- advance the intellectual capital and operational excellence that stimulate public dialogue and purposeful translation to practice in industry; and
- create the institutional capacity to train the workforce of tomorrow.
.
Our leadership team is unequivocal in its pursuit of sustainability.
Embedding Sustainability in the Strategic Plan
In the 2019–22 BCIT Strategic Plan, we have articulated three Commitments that represent our primary areas of activity and accountability. We are intent on being a people-focused organization that delivers future-proof applied education, amplifying our impact through globally relevant connections.
Key initiatives align with these commitments to create a framework for action and decision making. Interwoven in much of the Strategic Plan, and highlighted in our core values, sustainability is explicit in—and integral to—these initiatives:
- Process and system redesign: redesign processes, systems, and structures to enhance our agility and effectiveness and to embed sustainability
- Augmented and sustainable environments: cultivate exceptional learning environments and communities through technology and sustainable campus development
- New models of collaboration: reinvent how we work with industry and peers to drive economic, social, and environmental prosperity in British Columbia and beyond
Jennie Moore, Director of Institute Sustainability, BCITBCIT’s first Sustainability Vision charts an exciting but complex journey for the Institute. It will be an exercise in tenacity and change management, underpinned by cross-functional and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Moving Forward
We will need to work closely with our industry, community, and government partners. Transparency and adaptability are also critically important in this complex and fast-changing domain. We will put in place the metrics and systems so that we can track and communicate our progress, enabling us to hone our approach as we proceed.
Interested in learning more?
The British Columbia Institute of Technology acknowledges that our campuses are located on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish Nations of Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam).
.