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Yearly Archives: 2010

York ranks third in University of Indonesia’s global survey of green campuses

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After conducting a seven-month online survey, on Thursday the University of Indonesia (UI) announced the first environmental-based universities rankings, hoping the benchmark would be adopted by every campus worldwide, wrote The Jakarta Post Dec. 12.

The survey, conducted between May and November, ranked participating universities based on several factors, including the percentage of green space on their campus, electricity consumption, waste and water management, and the application of eco-sustainability policies and efforts. As many as 94 universities from 35 countries participated in the survey, which is called “UI Green Metric Ranking of World Universities 2010”.

Seven US-based universities entered the ranking's top 10, including the University of California, Berkeley, which topped the list, and Northeastern University, which came fourth.

"We hope there will be more universities participating in the survey next year," UI rector Gumilar Rusliwa Somantri said.

UI GreenMetric Ranking:

University of California, Berkeley, US (8,213 points)
University of Nottingham, UK (8,201.55 points)
York University, Canada (7,909.14 points)

Job Posting at WWF – Canada

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Position:                Coordinator, Volunteer Resources

Reporting to:         Director, Human Resources

Status:                   Full-Time Permanent

About WWF

WWF, the global conservation organization, is one of the world's largest and most respected independent conservation organizations. WWF has a global network active in over 100 countries with almost 5 million supporters.

WWF's mission is to stop the degradation of the earth's natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by conserving the world's biological diversity, ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable, and promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption.

WWF-Canada has a history of tremendous accomplishment, currently focusing on preventing dangerous climate change, as well as investing in long-term conservation efforts in Canada’s Grand Banks, the Pacific Coast and the Mackenzie River Valley.  We are also the only international environmental organization operating in Cuba.  This is an exciting period at WWF-Canada.

About the Volunteer Resources Coordinator Role

WWF-Canada is looking for a hard-working and enthusiastic Volunteer Resources Coordinator who wants to play an integral role in developing and enhancing our volunteer program.  The Volunteer Resources Coordinator will use his/her skills in volunteer management, events and communications to contribute to the continuous improvement of the volunteer experience!

Key Responsibilities:

The Volunteer Resources Coordinator will provide support for the organization in a wide range of functions, including the following: 

  • Lead the recruitment process for volunteers, including job postings, interviews, applicant database management;
  • Develop and conduct orientation and training programs; assess and assign volunteers to appropriate volunteer placements;
  • Develop customized volunteer position descriptions; contribute to the development and implementation of regional volunteer recruitment; promote volunteer engagement;
  • Participation in the organization of internal staff functions/events; serve as key Event staff during event season;
  • Provide volunteer metrics on a regular basis to the organization outlining key achievements;
  • Plan and execute formal and informal volunteer recognition events;
  • Develop and maintain policies and procedures pertaining to volunteers.

Qualifications:

  • Post-secondary education with a focus on volunteer management, HR or similar field.
  • At least 4 years of experience in overseeing and building a volunteer program for a non-profit organization.
  • Demonstrated experience with the development and evaluation of internal and external volunteer events.
  • Experience managing volunteers for large-scale events.
  • Ability to track and report on metrics in a clear and timely manner.
  • Excellent computer skills, including MS Excel, Powerpoint and Access.

 Other Skills & Abilities 

  • Strong interpersonal skills in order to build effective working relationships and collaborate with volunteers and staff; a demonstrated ability to build teams, motivate and support others.
  • Effective communication skills to interact with diverse groups of volunteers, staff, and community partners.
  • Ability to analyze issues, identify opportunities to integrate services, anticipate potential problems, demonstrates flexibility and solution-oriented thinking.
  • Proactive and results driven.
  • Energetic, with the ability to work under pressure with grace.
  • A passion for conservation.

 Other Information: 

This is a full-time permanent position based in our Toronto office (Eglinton & Mt Pleasant).  WWF-Canada has a competitive vacation and employee benefits plan and offers a flexible and diverse workplace.

 How to Apply:

A resume and cover letter referencing the position and salary expectations should be submitted by Friday, January 8, 2011.

 Please quote the job number and title “VC234 (Volunteer Resources Coordinator)” in the subject line.

ca-jobs@wwfcanada.org 

 No phone calls please.  We thank all applicants for their interest however we may contact only those candidates selected for interviews.

 WWF-Canada is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome diversity in the workplace and encourage applications from all qualified candidates including women, members of visible minorities, persons with disabilities, and aboriginal peoples. 

Sustainability & Business Do Mix

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On November 9th, I attended Bob Willard’s book launch of The Sustainability Champion’s Guidebook: How to Transform Your Company (New Society Publishers, 2009). Prior to the launch, I had never heard of this author’s work, but, Willard’s presentation couldn’t have been more relevant to my life and what I am currently learning in school. Coming from a business background and listening to the importance of sustainability was somewhat predictable. However, what truly caught my attention was the “how to” get prominent business leaders to listen to and implement changes that positively affect the environment. Bob Willard’s solution to getting business leaders (CEO’s) to listen and implement sustainable practices in their companies is to use business terminology. As simple as that may sound, it works! Think about it…business-minded individuals are primarily concerned about one thing, and one thing only, money. Thus, talking to them in terms of profit is the ideal solution. Instead of calling it “sustainability” and “corporate social responsibility,” Willard proposes calling it “asset management.” Furthermore, Willard suggests that the three components of asset management should be renamed “financial capital,” “natural capital” and “human/social capital.” His presentation on making sustainability a part of our lives truly impacted my life as a business student. To learn more about this event, please visit http://www.yorku.ca/yfile/archive/index.asp?Article=15969

Annihilating Accountability

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Image from ThoughtBubble.org

Last month, Stephen Harper annihilated the Climate Change Accountability Act (Bill C-311) even though it was defeated in Parliament 43-32, without a debate. This has not happened in eighty years. This blatant, insulting attack on democracy is, to say the least, concerning.

A link on the IRIS facebook page lead to me to the David Suzuki Foundation’s website, where I was able to send an e-mail to Mr. Harper about eliminating the bill right before UN Climate negotiations began.

I wish I could say that I was surprised by Stephen Harper responding and apologizing for his undemocratic hissy-fit. Instead, I was surprised by responses from politicians who were cc'd. I received an e-mail from Elizabeth May touting green party rhetoric, reminding me that she has been a supporter of the bill since its inception.  I also received an e-mail from Mr. Ignatieff, which summarized the issue as well as had a similar underlying message. Surely Canadians know why they are sending the e-mail in the first place. I did not choose to use the David Suzuki Foundation as a channel so that I could get spammed by the opposition.

This aside, I am disappointed by the lack of response and am unsure of how to proceed. The Green Party suggests a letter writing campaign. Thus far, this has only resulted in getting spammed.

So, I am opening this up to anyone reading this post. Any suggestions on how to move forward?

COP is Dead, Long live the COP

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The Conference of the Parties, as the pluralistic democratic space for halting climate change, is dead. Long live the new Conference of the Parties, in which the autocratic, top-down institutions we are all so familiar with, will instruct us on how climate change is a reality to be adapted to and if we get on board, profited from.

We have been in Cancun since Saturday navigating the spaces for NGO-Governmental cross-communication and the halls are empty. At any given moment it feels like 100 people are in the space of Cancunmesse. Information booths are abandoned with only the occasional lone NGO delegate standing on duty. Side events have been cancelled throughout the daily schedule at Cancunmesse. There have been no internal protests by official NGOs, no sit ins, no coalitions walking out of negotiations in protest, and almost no media circulating the NGO center. It seems as though the delegates who remain at Cancunmesse are only doing so because they were unfortunate enough to get stuck at the kiddie table while the adults have caught the no. 9 biofueled bus to the Moon Palace. From what we can gather on the ground, most NGOs here are so dispersed across Cancun and the southerly town of Puerto Morales that there is no one center for civil society to congregate on. This would have been critical to fostering the important dialogue between critical and mainstream NGOs, as well as dialogue between these actors and national delegates. Reports from Democracy Now! suggest that the Moon Palace media center is also empty. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! reported on Monday that they were shocked to find only 3 reporters in the media center and only one person to interview (another reporter). No one seems to be in the common spaces of the Moon Palace either. Only national delegates are to be found running in and out of the negotiations which are locked behind closed doors. Rumors inside Cancunmesse suggest that the Climate Village has also been poorly attended and is also totally dead, except at night time when locals come for the free government sponsored concerts. The dispersion of COP16 over 5 massive segregated spaces has left us, appropriately, with an oceanic feeling of drift. Unlike COP15, where it felt as if the world had descended on the Bella Center, this year it feels like no one bothered to show up.

Can this emptiness and lack of dialogue be explained simply by the spatial reconstruction we wrote of in our last post? We wish it was that simple. This would mean that the failure to achieve critical mass here in Cancun was simply a function of organization. We (hypothetically) could do better next time. Unfortunately, the issue is related to a much deeper problem rooted in the negotiations themselves. Put simply, without any real chance of deal to halt climate change, the new metric for success at COP has been downgraded to anything but the complete implosion of the process itself. But what is left of this process? What we find in the news bulletins is a continued tension between developed and developing countries. Suspicions that developed countries will not commit to new targets in post-Kyoto period, and that the Kyoto Protocol may be abandoned altogether, have emerged throughout the co-corridors of COP16. NGOs are confined to watching presentations in which we find developed countries are emphasizing low carbon development for developing countries. It is argued that low carbon growth for developing nations can be made through a new climate fund- the Green Fund. Negotiations of the text around a Green Fund are continuing throughout the week. The Fund is expected to provide mitigation and adaptation finance for developing countries. Developed countries are advocating that the World Bank act as the trustee of this fund. Developing countries are concerned not only about the World Bank’s role in this fund, but also in the amount of funds, and the allocation of funds towards mitigation instead of adaptation. The limit of NGO engagement and comment on this has been confined to a statement by Oxfam and a petition signed by 210 other civil society actors. Likewise, today the World Bank announced a plan to extend climate mitigation markets to select emerging economies including India, Mexico, and Brazil. Meanwhile, the environmental ministers from various developing countries throughout the weekend and early part of this week have stressed that they are already impacted by climate change and that they need funding to adapt. Various exhibits showcase the plans of national governments for adaptation in the hopes of gaining international funding and support for these plans through multilateral donors, traditional development agencies, and private partners.

In other words, the failure at Copenhagen last year to come to a global agreement on how to halt climate change has left us with an intractable situation between developed and developing countries who will now squabble over how best to deal with a reality that no one seems able to come to grips with. And the means for resolving this squabble will be the COP, but a COP process which is designed to remove official NGOs, civil society, and any dissenting voices from the negotiation spaces.

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Green Drinks Holiday Party!

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Where: Grace O' Malleys-14 Duncan Street

When: Wednesday, December 15th, 2010, 6-9pm

Green Drinks brings together a lively mixture of people from NGOs, academia, students, government and business . Come along and you'll be made welcome. Just say, "are you green?" and they will look after you and introduce you to whoever is there. ...It's a great way of catching up with people you know and also of making new contacts. Everyone invites someone else along, so there’s always a different crowd, making Green Drinks an organic, self-organising network.

These events are very simple and unstructured, but many people have found employment, made friends, developed new ideas, done deals and had moments of serendipity.

For more information, please go to www.greendrinkstoronto.org or email greendrinks@gmail.com

Come and join Chapter members and industry leaders for a fun evening of holiday cheer and festive networking!

Climate Refugees?

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Last month IRIS released a report from the 2009 Ecojustice Conference which stated that the Global South is disproportionately affected by climate change. Although Northern countries are the main causes of climate change, it is our Southern counterparts that are dealing with the consequences. Climate change is resulting in droughts, floods, atypical weather events as well as other natural repercussions that are creating mass migrations that are certainly not by choice. This being said, these disasters are never solely natural; they are a combination of political, cultural and social interactions that affect communities like the South Pacific island of Tuvalu which will soon be under water.

The international community has not adequately prepared for the consequences of climate change. What will happen to the people of Tuvalu when they are forced to migrate? Currently the term climate refugees is contested. Many reject the word ‘refugee’ for victims of climate change because they do not fit into the rigid and strict 1951 United Nations Convention definition. Because these populations have not been persecuted in the traditional, political sense they do not fall under the jurisdiction of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), which is the UN agency that handles all refugees with the exception of those originating in Palestine. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is a separate, specialized UN agency.

The international community needs to begin questioning and deciding what they are going to do with this mass influx of communities that are forced to migrate. Are they climate refugees? Stateless people? Simply migrants? Where are these people going to migrate to?

What Northern countries should really be asking themselves is: when are we going to take responsibility for our actions?

Women, Environment and Labour

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DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 15, 2011

Women and Environments International Magazine (WEI) is seeking submissions for its upcoming issue on Women, Environment and Labour for publication in Spring/Summer 2011. The objective of this issue is to critically examine women’s labour (paid and unpaid) in the context of the environment - natural, built, social. Contributors are invited to explore gender perspectives including, but not limited to, the following topics:
• Climate and environmental change and its impact on women’s labour
• Changes in women’s labour resulting from natural disasters, environmental degradation and other major environmental events
• Intersections of gender, labour, and environments in particular marginalized communities, such as indigenous communities
• Local, national, or regional level perspectives on economic recovery policies and fiscal austerity measures in relation to women, labour, and environments
• Industrialization and economic change in developing country contexts and its impacts on women, labour and environments
• Social and environmental determinants of women’s health related to labour or workplace environments
• Labour activism (e.g. labour unions, transnational labour movements etc.) on women and environmental issues
• Labour unions and/or organizing on women’s health in the workplace
• Migration – urban, rural, economic, conflict-related, other – and its impact on women’s labour
• Women’s labour in the context of refugee or internally-displaced persons (IDP) environments
• Impact of environmental factors on women’s unpaid labour
• Labour laws and practices relating to women and environments
• Environmental laws and practices relating to women and labour
WEI aims to gather content from both the North and the South. Submissions may be in the form of critical studies,
essays, case studies, book or film reviews, poetry, photography, and or visual art. While we appreciate every submission to WEI, only contributors whose work has been selected will be contacted.

Submissions: Send submission(s) electronically to weimag@yorku.ca using “Women, Environment and Labour”
as your subject heading. Please refer to the Editorial guidelines at http://www.weimag.com

General Information: WEI is a magazine that examines women's relations to their natural, built, and social
environments from feminist and anti-racist perspectives. It has provided a forum for academic research and
theory, professional practice and community experience since 1976. Like most scholarly publications, WEI does
not pay for contributions but retains a high-quality wide readership so your contribution will reach a wide
audience. Upon publication, WEI assumes a non-exclusive, worldwide, and perpetual right to publish and
reproduce contributions in any format in and outside the magazine context. This does not preclude contributors
from granting permission to publish their materials after publication in WEI provided WEI is acknowledged as the
original publisher.

Women & Environments International Magazine - Faculty of Environmental Studies -York University
4700 Keele Street, Toronto ON Canada M3J 1P3 Email: weimag@yorku.ca Website: www.weimag.com

Sustainable Business is a Smart Business

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Last week, here at the Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS), we were very fortunate to be able to host a talk by Dr. Bob Willard and to launch his latest book, The Sustainability Champion’s Guidebook. This book succinctly explains the case for why a sustainable business is a smart business. What personally struck me was the fact that, being a Human Resources management student, I have been taught that change has to be top down in order for it to be effective. We learn in our course, that it is top management’s responsibility to create a vision and ensure that the whole organization shares that vision. Top management has to “walk the walk and talk the talk” to show commitment to any significant change. However, this perspective does not allow us to take account of how change can be initiated at any level of the organization. Dr. Willard’s new book, The Sustainability Champion’s Guidebook, calls for a paradigm shift and emphasize the fact that any employee, regardless of their position can encourage and initiate change. This book provides a step-by-step guide on how to inspire a shared vision and mobilize commitment and embed and align change within any organization.

The Justice Cafe

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Where: The Student Center, Room 307, York University

When: Monday, December 6th, 2010

Aggrey is the executive director ofnthe Ugunja Community Resource Centre (UCRC) and will be leading a  discussion on international solidarity and community development in Kenya.

Coffee and tea will be served.

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