Mandate
The mandate of the CECCS is to advance coordination of the University’s contributions and objectives on climate change and sustainability pertaining to research and innovation, academic programs, community engagement, and sustainability initiatives related to our operations.
Goals:
- Sustainability as a key component of the U of T identity
- International leadership in operational and academic sustainability
- Enabling and embedding disparate sustainability activities
Over the four years of operation since its creation in 2017, the CECCS pursued its goals through three CECCS Subcommittees: Campus as a Living Lab (CLL), University as Agent of Change in the Community (AOC), and Curriculum Innovation (CI). The key strategies of these committees were to promote the integration of operational and academic sustainability through ‘Campus as a Living Lab’ projects (CLL), to develop partnerships on sustainability issues with the various communities internally and outside U of T (AOC), and to make sustainability curriculum opportunities available to students (CI). Across the activities of these Subcommittees, the CECCS has identified, facilitated, supported, enabled, and promoted sustainability initiatives across all three campuses. This has been accomplished through leveraging individual campus identities, fostering a sense of common purpose, and bringing together existing sustainability networks and connections at U of T and in the community.
Organizational Framework
In 2021, a revised organizational framework for the CECCS was developed as follow:
2 Overarching Principles
- Regenerative Sustainability
- Operational and Academic Sustainability Integration
4 Cross-Cutting Themes
- Campus as a Living Lab (CLL)
- University as an Agent of Change (AOC)
- United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- Student Engagement
4 Subcommittees
- Teaching and Learning
- Research
- Operations
- Engagement and Partnerships
Learn more about our revised organizational framework here.