The climate crisis is larger than the sum of our individual actions. Join or grow collective action efforts to identify and address systems-level changes.
Start a new or join an existing Climate & Sustainability Action Committee or green team in your department
Take part in an existing Climate & Sustainability Action Committee:
- More and more departments are forming Climate & Sustainability Action Committees:
- Geography
- Library
- Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS)
- Asian Studies
- Forestry
- Educational Studies
- Sociology
- Psychology
- Academics Concerned about Academic Travel (ACAT)
- Find a Sustainability Representative or Committee at UBC through this directory
- Join the Interdepartmental Climate Committee (IDCC). The IDCC deepens engagement and advocacy activities, provides peer support for department-level climate work (e.g., green days, reducing business air travel, curriculum development), supports Climate Emergency Week events, advocates with the Faculty Association, provides information to encourage civic engagement, and meets with UBC leadership to offer support for actions to strengthen climate initiatives. The IDCC’s members meet every two months to share progress and find support for climate work. The IDCC is open to all faculty, students, and staff.
- E-mail climate.emergency@ubc.ca to join.
Create a new Climate & Sustainability Action Committee:
- Get started with the Departmental Climate Action Committee Toolkit created by the Geography Climate Action Committee initiative!
- Set and implement climate emergency goals and actions by using the Climate Justice Toolkit and the Green Team Guide
- The Climate Emergency Response team can help coordinate and facilitate initial discussions among your team(s) and offer some support for academic leaders to advance the CETF strategic priorities for collective impact.
- The team can support with:
- Coordinating and facilitating climate action discussions;
- Providing climate action resources;
- Deploying climate toolkits.
Encourage your unit to go through the Indigenous Strategic Plan (ISP) Self – Assessment Tool. Consider tying to strategic planning processes.
Talk with your peers and colleagues about reducing academic air travel by using the UBC Library’s Air Travel Decision Tree.
Students: Build a culture of student climate leadership
- Advocate for more climate research and justice content in your UBC courses with the Student Academic Climate Advocacy Toolkit by UBC Climate Hub
- Infiltrate your local municipal government with climate action by applying the Infiltration Manual: Pushing for Ambitious Climate Action at the Municipal Level Toolkit
- Connect with other students to push your department to take climate action
- Establish a student Climate Lead in your affiliated student organization (e.g. clubs, undergraduate societies, associations, teams) and a department Climate Emergency Committee
- Set and implement climate emergency goals and actions to advance UBC’s Climate Emergency priority areas
- Join a climate-oriented student group at UBC
- Connect with the Climate Emergency Response team for strategic support and to learn about interdepartmental climate action initiatives
