Help make our campuses more sustainable and make your ideas come to life with our Campus Sustainability Grants.
Funded through energy savings from the University of Alberta Energy Management Program, these grants are open to students, staff and faculty.
What type of projects are funded?
Projects should use a campus-focused lens to improve operations and practices, advance the stewardship of our natural environment, conduct collaborative research in sustainability, encourage integrated and collaborative solutions to sustainability problems, or advance a culture of sustainability on our campuses.
Full details can be found in the Campus Sustainability Grant Guidelines.
If you have an idea, email us at emso@ualberta.ca, and we'll happily help you take the next step.
Congratulations to all successful applicants! View a full summary of awarded projects or select ones below.
The We’re Ready! Community Disaster Preparedness pilot workshop was designed to build emergency preparation and response capacity at the community level. We’re Ready! provided students, staff and faculty with knowledge, skills and resources to design their own disaster preparedness plans in response to climate emergencies in the workplace. The workshop also provided them with knowledge to prepare for emergencies in their other communities, such as their neighbourhoods. This was accomplished through interactive and engaging activities that strengthen social connections and enhance community resilience.
Extensive amounts of food waste are generated worldwide on a daily basis. The ability to divert this waste away from landfills and convert it into valuable products will assist with waste disposal costs, sustainability management and environmental enhancement initiatives.
This project reduced water consumption in laboratory experiments across introductory and intermediate organic chemistry laboratory courses while also incorporating green chemistry and sustainability concepts into the curriculum. Approximately 120,000-150,000 litres of water can be conserved per academic year.
Chemical products synthesized as part of previous laboratory curricula were collected and are now being recycled as intermediates for higher level laboratory courses. This will be an ongoing project for many years and has already diverted many kilograms of chemical products away from chemical waste disposal.
Aging and inefficient incandescent lighting in the Fine Arts Building Gallery was replaced with low-energy, long-lasting LED lights. The previous halogen lights burned out often and could not be recycled so the new LEDs help reduce landfill deposits, emissions and energy use (60 kWh/day). Safety is also improved as LED lighting is cooler, whereas the incandescent bulbs emitted more heat and were a hazard if not monitored and utilized correctly. Lastly, this project increased in community stewardship, interdepartmental collaboration and learning opportunities.
This kit will help teachers and Cree language students alike to have a holistic perspective of the Cree language and culture as presented by various authors and dialects. The kit includes books, flashcards, a poster and a list of resources to help students become informed citizens and future teachers of Cree within a global movement towards indigenous language revitalization.
The European elm scale is an invasive pest that feeds on elm sap and causes leaf-drop, branch die-back and a sticky residue in recreational shaded areas around campus. This project used campus as a living lab to develop a program that engages students in sustainable pest management by evaluating environmentally friendly methods to manage the European elm scale infestation on campus trees without insecticides.
Results indicate that a scrubbing treatment can successfully reduce the density of European elm scale insects. This will reduce the need for insecticide applications, reducing harmful environmental effects and harm to non-target insects and animals.
An inexpensive system has been designed to enable recirculation of cooling water for condensers in undergraduate chemistry labs (Chem 241 and 243) to replace the currently wasteful habit of running domestic cold water through the condensers and directly into the sewer system. The system was successfully tested during two laboratory experiments in Chem 243 (Winter 2020). Informal discussions with students and TAs indicated that the system was easy to use and that the students appreciated the incorporation of a sustainability initiative to reduce water consumption in the labs.
This LED module is the main light source for a Zeiss LSM 700 Confocal Microscope. The microscope is heavily used for different projects by various Centre for Prions and Protein Folding Diseases and Medicine and Dentistry researchers such as studying Tau liquid–liquid phase separation. The LED light is needed for illumination of the optical view for fluorescent microscopy. The projected cost of replacing a light guide and mercury bulb from a mercury light source will save ~$2000 every 1-2 years and eliminates all possibility of a mercury bulb breaking and releasing toxic gaseous mercury into an enclosed space. The new module that was purchased does not have any need for replacement of a light guide. The bulb lifetime is up to 10 times longer than that of a mercury light source.
CASCH 2019 accomplished what it set out to do: engage an interdisciplinary array of students from across Alberta in a discussion about current trends and future directions in health promotion, health care, health research and practice in Alberta.
The participants inspired the future of health by presenting discussing topics related to innovative work in four themes:
Watch University of Alberta students and the Renewable Energy Design Club on Global News as they talk about their first solar-powered greenhouse in partnership with Exceed Solar, a project that was funded by Campus Sustainability Grants program. Story by Kim Smith.
With funding from the Campus Sustainability Grants program, students, faculty and staff from different disciplines are coming together to develop sustainable gardening practices powered by the sun.