By Nicole Findlay
More often than not, businesses shy away from incorporating sustainable environmental practices for fear of cutting into profit margins. This fall, Carleton students will examine two local companies that have flourished as a result of their commitment to the environment and social justice.
Students registered in Patricia Ballamingie’s FYSM Sustainable Futures will participate in a field trip to Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) and Bridgehead – both located in Westboro Village.
Ballamingie, an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, organizes the trip to expose students to successful and profitable alternative business models that focus on more than the bottom line.
An assignment requiring students to comment on five aspects of MEC’s ‘green building design’ helps to anchor sustainable design principles presented in class.
“Students are exposed to many seemingly daunting social and environmental challenges,” said Ballamingie. “Such critique must be counter-balanced by positive alternatives, including a sense of what the possibilities for solutions are.”
MEC follows a cooperative business model that strives to be environmentally and socially responsible. The Ottawa location is the first Canadian building that meets the C2000 Canada’s model for energy efficiency and uses 50 per cent less energy than similar structures. Built with 56 per cent recycled materials, the store includes recycled newspapers and straw as insulation, posts and beams made from Douglas fir salvaged from the St. Lawrence River and a cistern that recycles rainwater for irrigation.
“The field trip to MEC to explore their “green building” illustrated a common goal of sustainability within the city of Ottawa, and opened my eyes to simple and local sustainable solutions,” said Caroline Lalumiere, 2nd year student in Environmental Studies. “The class made a serious influence on my life, and how I live it.”
Following the MEC tour, students enjoy a cup of coffee at the Bridgehead Coffeehouse next door. Bridgehead offers fairly traded, organic and shade-grown coffee while ensuring farmers receive fair compensation for their work.
“We are all complicit in the problems we face, but that shouldn’t stop us from striving toward more sustainable practices,” said Ballamingie.
Businesses are beginning to take note that what is good for the environment is good for the bottom line. Here on campus MacOdrum Library’s PageBreak sells fair trade coffee.
“The current situation of the environment once filled me with a sense of shame and hopelessness,” says Nicholas Ouellette, 2nd year environmental studies student. “People like Patricia Ballamingie and the MEC crew have demonstrated that good things can and will be done.”
With the Federal Government’s dwindling commitment to environmental programs, educating Canada’s future generation on sustainability couldn’t be timelier.