A Sustainability Action Plan for Conestoga College

The paper closely examines three metrics namely water, energy, and waste in relation to their impact on sustainability in the college. It offers estimation based on the past and current usage and disposal rate and explains every metric on the same. The paper moves on to examine some of the sustainability plans of five institutions namely; McGill University, York University, University of Guelph, Concordia University, and Queen’s University in an attempt to understand the relevance of sustainability efforts. Further, the study provides nine recommendations based on water, energy, and waste management with an explanation for the same. Lastly, the research offers a summary of the key findings of the study and highlights further study in areas such as the application of renewable material, and energy conservation.

" The mission of the institution is to lead in innovation both in research and education, meet the priorities and needs of the community, and empower people to attain their full potential in skill learning. Its values are based on the equity cross all diverse groups, excellence in their services and program delivery, and engagement across all spheres of life. With Conestoga College being among the most successful colleges in "Kitchener, Ontario, Canada", the surrounding area is well established with various businesses that are meant to serve the college and the people from the surrounding. Thus, the college is prone to various social, economic, and environmental factors that may have a profound influence in “business-as-usual” within the college surrounding and some of these factors might continue to impact its business operations in the future.

Social factors perceive the market as a group and how customers are likely to respond and behave. The college offers business-related courses such as entrepreneurship, thus equipping learners with creative ideas that might result in the development of great companies in the region. Thus, experimenting some of these skills in practice, especially after learners complete their course and move on to offer services to the community will have a positive impact in business innovation around the place leading to productivity growth, more employment opportunities, economic growth, and competitiveness within Conestoga College and the community at large(Jimenez, et al, 2015, Para. This influence will likely grow strong in the future as the college continues to attract high education rates based on entrepreneurship.

Buying habits continue to grow than before as more learners are enrolled in the collage thus might boost the income rates of many businesses that operate with Conestoga College. In as much as social factors are likely to influence business as usual operation around Conestoga College, environmental factors such external and internal factors might as well contributed to this influence. The other sustainability objective involves developing a good relationship with the community and college partners in order to support the goal of the institution of attaining effective sustainability (Conestoga, 2018, Para. Thus, the college plans to introduce new initiatives that are meant to raise public awareness in relation to the role that the Conestoga College plays in supporting the community. This involves creating a lasting bond with "alumni, stakeholders, student government, and partners in order to support its various development programs related to sustainability.

The third action plan is to manage its resources in a way that they support college programs and effective service delivery. The college plans on achieving this plan through the implementation of fresh approaches that will improve resource and space utilization within the college with an aim of supporting the increasing enrollments based on current facilities in order to develop more ways of generating revenues. Also, female students have issues with venturing far from the premises of the campus, especially in night hours. There is also less emphasis on the history as well as the heritage of the community. In relation to opportunities, Conestoga College has been among the top institution based on graduate employment and in 2013-13 it registered about 88.

9% in top ranking quartile. Also, the college has reported a high graduation rate of about 65. The plan helps the college optimize some of its life-cycle in order to improve economic consumption. With the application of "Demand Control Ventilation (DCV)," the college ensures that the amount of fresh air that occupies the level is optimized to lower its costs as well as increase comfort. The college also has "LED Lighting" with harvesting sensors that are effective in energy conservation. Its various power conservation plans such as the application of "Demand Response, Utility Sub-Metering, and Solar panels have boosted the amount of energy the college uses (Conestoga, 2014, pg. Waste The college is prepared to hold an audit in connection to waste reduction as part of its year work plan.

The unique part of this program is the fact that it focuses on to bring out the best of a leader through effective leadership skills training in order to help them endure any sustainability challenges through core competencies. The three major thematic pillars include; “science and technology, economics, policy, and governance, and ethics, equity, and justice. ” The role of “Science and Technology pillar” is to offer learners with a knowhow on how to solve problems of concern as they arise in the community. "Economics, Policy, and Governance, on the other hand, bring students to an understanding of "Sustainability transition". In relation to "Ethics, Equity, and Justice," the college helps learners the reason why change is necessary and be aware of the issue of justice as well as equity when making moves.

Learners are to graduate with a positive mentality of igniting light in the society rather than darkness with the skills acquired. Lastly, learners must be able to communicate ideas in a persuasive way both through writing and orally to the masses (McGill, 2018). York University York University is ranked as the third largest university in Canada with an enrollment of more than a community of fifty-three thousand students with seven hundred faculties and staff and more than 295000 alumni. Based on its sustainability plan of 2015 to 2020, the university made a declaration of its values the fiscal, environmental, and social sustainability based on its program, its fiduciary activities, and physical environment. Thus, the institution focuses on identifying other enhancements that have the capability of growing its commitment in connection to sustainability.

As a result of this plan, the institution has henceforth introduced other programs that offer sustainability courses in its curriculum. This has resulted in the inclusion of about 500 programs that support the idea of sustainability within and across this university. The university has not only implemented its policies that focus on sustainability in classrooms, but also outside the classroom. For instance, through "Campus Services and Business Operations (CSBO)" the university has established various Energy Management policies as a way to regulate and recycle the amount of energy used in the campus. Other programs include a ZeroWaste program that aims at reducing the amount of waste disposed within the college as well as effective ways to recycle and dispose of waste substances.

The institution trains their learners to effectively exclude the natural world resources and proper ways of disposing of reusing them once they become of less value. This university presents itself as an institution of sustainability through educating its learners in different sustainability programs. The university offers 256 sustainability programs and the numbers are expected to rise. Among its values, the university supports the idea of fair trade across all diversity groups. It won an award in 2013 in relation to its value in fairness. They are given an opportunity to be part of the global solution in relation to the world greatest trials. The institution also prepares their students in the most effective ways to feed the growing mass in a sustainable way.

The institution trains their learners to be able to use DNA based barcoding technology in order to locate food fraud, borne ailments, and any signs of invasive pests. The aim of sustainability, especially in food is to help students have an understanding on how to apply massive data in order to reduce the application of the pesticide, locate crops that might require a climate change, and monitors the health of the watershed. The aim of the institution is to go for the truth and focuses on serving the community in a way that will improve the quality of living through various scholarship programs. Also, the institution is responsible for cases of responsible agriculture behaviors. The university treats any form of discarded material that is thrown to the landfill as waste.

The institution thus believes that the environment can be saved from the impact of waste through effective waste reduction methods. Thus, the university emphasis on the importance of recycling waste effectively and ways to dispose of or reuse products that hold less value upon usage among its learners. Due to the fact that the institution faces some issues related to climate change, Concordia University believes that there is a need to use cleaner methods of energy consumption. “Queen’s University” “Queen’s University at Kingston” is a public institution situates in “Kingston, Ontario, Canada. ” The university was created in 1841 courtesy of Queen Victoria charter. The academic mission of this institution is based on the basis of campus sustainability. Research, as well as curriculum, helps the university to support its ideas based on a sustainable community and these efforts extend beyond the borders of the university.

Thus, the institution focuses more on educating learners in order to increase their awareness based on the importance of sustainability and its impact on the environment as they are prepared to join and impact the community and the world. 5 percent. This forced the college to spend a lot on its energy sector due to cases of heavy consumption. Therefore, the university aims at introducing various digital means to some of its departments with an attempt to regulate the amount energy lost during various operations within the college. This entails the effective application of its valuable resources and educating their learners about the importance of energy conservation. The university also is working on introducing effective means of transportation that will reduce the impact carbon emission cause to the environment, through carpooling, sharing a car, public transport help, and cycling infrastructure.

Thus, in order to reduce the amount of waste emitted to the environment, especially in the form of plastic and other non-renewable resources. Thus, the first line of action that the college should consider is through the implementation of campus policies that require all students as well the university and staff to purchase items that are renewable, especially those that are disposed of after a short period of application. This can be achieved by educating learners on the importance of going green. Also, the university should consider partnering with various organizations that offer waste management programs (CUHK), 2017, Para, 2-5). The idea is to support going green again within the campus by collecting waste disposed carelessly on a regular basis. Conestoga College plans to attain scale economies as well as promote revenues based on enrolment development and also a high rate of student retention.

This means the college plans to raise the number of enrolments, especially in high demanding sectors through the implementation of new methods of recruitment and encouraging enrolments from other international communities. The goal is to give learners the best learning experience that involves support for the needs of students, increase graduation rates and support student retention to support sustainability. The institution has made various attempts to reduce the amount of waste, water, and energy used in order to preserve the future application of such resources. Further research should be conducted in the application or renewable material, and energy conservation for clarity purposes. ca/page/2014-17-strategic-mandate-agreement-conestoga-college-institute-technology-and-advanced-learning Gorman, G. , Tieu, T. T, & Cook, T. Non-Traditional pathways to Postsecondary Education: A Qualitative Study of the Experiences of students in College Preparatory programs.