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Collingwood School

Sustainability Plan

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Sustainability Plan Year 1 Report

Our Progress in the Past Year

The 2024-2025 school year marked an important milestone: it was the first year we implemented the priority actions from our School’s Sustainability Plan. Over the past year, we began the crucial work of integrating environmental stewardship into our campus community and culture, operations, and educational approach. This effort aimed to create a strong foundation for meaningful change across our organization.

Students, parents, faculty, and operational staff all collaborated to complete priority actions within our six focus areas. These actions were specifically designed to reduce our ecological footprint: We took steps to manage our grounds and buildings more sustainably, reduce energy and water consumption, seek out low-impact travel and transport options, and improve our purchasing, waste, and food service practices. Our overarching commitment to reducing our carbon footprint and addressing climate change was woven throughout each of these efforts.

We acknowledge the urgency of environmental challenges while also taking into consideration the realities of resource allocation, budget considerations, and timeline management. We continue to pursue external consultation and funding to amplify the impact of our work, supporting innovation, research, and progress toward our goals.

We are pleased with the progress we have made over the course of this year. We remain committed to continuing to use a strategic and measured approach to complete the actions outlined in our Plan over the next five years. The following sections detail the goals, targets, and actions we advanced during Year 1 of our Sustainability Plan.

Status Update

Of the 33 Priority Actions we intended to pursue in 2024/2025, as outlined in our Sustainability Plan, we completed 23 (or 70%). An additional 10 actions (30%) are currently pending. 

We will continue to pursue these goals in 2025/2026 and begin work on further Priority Actions. 

 

 

Collingwood Carbon Assessment Report

We are proud to report a significant reduction in our environmental impact. Over the last two years (2022–2025), we have decreased our total carbon emissions by 18%, eliminating 168 tonnes of CO2.

Leading the Province: Our commitment to efficiency means we operate well below the provincial average for greenhouse gas emissions.

  • BC K-12 Average: 18.3 CO2e/m2
  • Wentworth Campus: 14.47 CO2e/m2
  • Morven Campus: 7.93 CO2e/m2 (Less than half the provincial average!)

Carbon Assessment Report

 

 

 

Some of Our Achievements This Year

Food Systems
Food Systems
  • F. 2 – Integrate sustainability criteria into Morven’s food service, Wentworth’s hot lunch program and Collingwood’s event catering services RFP processes and contracts.
  • F. 3 – Assess food and dining purchasing policies + practices, including single use cutlery and dishware programs and food packaging, to identify opportunities to reduce environmental impacts and food waste.
Energy
Energy
  • En. 5 – Consider implementing the following emissions reduction projects at Morven:
    • Replace the existing unit ventilators with heat pump unit ventilators and a cooling tower.
    • Replace the existing gas-fired domestic hot water heaters with electric resistance water heaters.
    • Install an electric resistance boiler system to eliminate the building’s remaining natural gas consumption.
  • Consider implementing the following emissions reduction projects at Wentworth:
    • Install an air source heat pump to electrify the new boiler plant heating system.
    • Replace the existing gas-fired domestic hot water heaters with electric resistance water heaters.
Water
Water
  • W.2 – Conduct a water audit at both campuses.
Campus Planning
Campus Planning
  • CP. 3 – Conduct a high-level climate change vulnerability assessment of Collingwood’s two campuses.
  • CP.7 – Created a “sustainable” fund for student initiatives and included a sustainability initiative within the Social Impact Lab structure.
Travel & Transport
Travel & Transport
  • T.6 – Integrated a requirement for electric vehicle buses into the RFP process for the daily bus and school trip services.  
  • T.9 – Implemented communications and incentive programs to promote more sustainable transport options, including carpooling, bike to work week, walking/ running, or taking transit for students, faculty & staff.
Purchasing & Waste
Purchasing & Waste
  • P.5 – Commited to purchasing only 100% recycled printing paper.
  • P.6 – Identify and implement opportunities for improving classroom waste reduction, by engaging students, staff, teachers and janitorial staff and referencing waste audit results. 
  • P.7 – Run communications and engagement initiatives to encourage proper waste sorting practices or promote waste reduction initiatives (e.g. litterless lunch campaign.
Education
Education
  • E.1 – Completed a baseline assessment of current course offerings to identify existing courses with sustainability-related content. 
  • E.2 – Refined Grade 7 and Grade 12 student learning profiles to define our targets for student sustainability education.  
Operations
Operations
  • O.1 – Morven and Wentworth Sustainability Leads to work with Operations to review operational sustainability projects and identify opportunities for engage students, faculty and staff involvement through curricular and co-curricular activities.
  • O.2 – Selected a system (START System, ESPM or another system) for collecting and monitoring data to track progress towards energy, emissions, waste, water and other sustainability targets.
  • O.3 – Ensure that school environmental policies, including Policy 5105 Environmental Policy and 5116 Energy Management Conservation Policy, reflect the current Sustainability Plan. Review needs for additional policies to guide our environmental practices.
Community & Culture
Community & Culture
  • C.1 – Develop a plan to ensure effective sustainability governance, accountability and reporting structures are in place to achieve targets and goals. 
  • C.2 – Continued to support and develop opportunities for sustainability activities and initiatives on campus and in the community. This included community clubs, student leadership, education events and service-learning activities.
  • C.3 – Create and implement an annual communications plan for sharing sustainability-related content throughout the year. Collect and share stories of sustainability initiatives across campus and the community.
  • C.4 – Track and share progress on sustainability commitments on an annual basis with students, faculty, staff, leadership and the larger Collingwood community
  • C.6 – Created a “sustainable” fund for student initiatives including a grant under Social Impact Labs.