Trinity One students get into a canoes on a field trip to Koffler Scientific Reserve
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About

About the Integrated Sustainability Initiative

The Integrated Sustainability Initiative aims to empower students with a deep understanding of the complex, interdisciplinary issues we face, the capacity to create systemic change, and the hopeful courage needed to make these changes. Our goal is to realize this through course content, experiential learning, as well as the lived reality on our campus. We embark on this path within the context of the wider University of Toronto community, and the involvement of community partners beyond the campus.

The Initiative also connects students to leaders at the forefront of environmental change and empowers students to become leaders themselves. From topics in food sovereignty and agricultural practices to diverse cultural perspectives on sustainability, students can find a welcoming community of people with their shared passions.

The Curriculum

We offer sustainability learning in various arenas: through our Margaret MacMillan Trinity One Program’s Butterfield Environment & Sustainability stream, our continued development of upper-year sustainability-focused courses, student independent research opportunities, and student-led public events.

The Space

Our new Lawson Centre for Sustainability aims to incorporate key sustainability features, including hybrid mass timber construction, LEED Platinum certification and CaGBC Zero Carbon building design certification (pending), rooftop gardens with farm-to-table food program, geothermal-source heating and cooling, and rooftop photovoltaic array (solar panels). In addition, we envision sustainable native landscaping as an integrated teaching space for our students.

Experiential Learning

Our students gain hands-on experience on and off campus with outdoor field trips, community-based learning and “citizen science.” Visit the Student Experience page to learn more.

A hand is touching soil Green plants emerge from the soil Basket of harvested greens

(Photo above: Growth cycle, left to right – planting seeds, growing seedlings to harvesting lettuce)

Partnerships

The Faculty of Arts & Science and the School of the Environment have partnered with Trinity College to support the Sustainability Initiative. The School of the Environment is an interdisciplinary hub that joins disciplines, departments and colleges across the University of Toronto to address today’s pressing environmental challenges. Forging partnerships with the wider community, the School accelerates and nurtures new initiatives through a faculty of diverse environmental experts. The School also hosts undergraduate and graduate academic programs of environmental sustainability in the humanities, natural sciences and social sciences.

“By integrating principles of sustainability into daily life at Trinity—from the urban farming initiative to classroom and research opportunities to the broader student experience—the College aims to make a positive difference and show what is possible.”

– Professor Mayo Moran, Provost & Vice-Chancellor, Trinity College