On November 19, 2019, the Vanier College Board of Directors unanimously passed a resolution pledging the College’s commitment to climate action by signing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Accord. The U.N. SDG Accord is a letter representing thousands of colleges, universities and educational networks across the world, which declares a global climate emergency and expresses a commitment to promoting sustainability and climate action in education. A sign of a growing movement in higher education, the letter will be presented to government officials at the U.N. Climate Change Conference COP25 in Madrid in December, 2019.

Vanier College is the first Montreal-area CEGEP to sign on, but joins other Montreal postsecondary institutions such as Concordia University, Université de Montréal and Université du Québec à Montréal. The only other Québec CEGEP to have signed on to date is CEGEP Sherbrooke.

The SDG Accord outlines a three-step plan for institutions that includes devoting more resources to climate action research and skills development, a commitment to becoming carbon neutral, and increasing sustainability education in its curriculum and community outreach.

For many years, Vanier College has been committed to sustainability in education. The college has a renowned Environmental and Wildlife Management program as well as a Sustainability Major, and its Collective Gardens allow a hands-on approach to teaching sustainability across many disciplines. The college is also an official Fair-Trade Campus and has banned the sale of water in plastic bottles on campus.

In October, the Vanier community came together to plant fifty trees to mark its 50th anniversary, 20 of which were edible species—initiating Vanier’s own Food Forest, the first of its kind in the Quebec CEGEP network. The college’s commitment to urban biodiversity is particularly noteworthy, given its location in the borough of Saint-Laurent, an area that contains some of the most biodiverse wetlands and green spaces on the island of Montreal.

The movement to declare a climate emergency at the college was grassroots; it emerged from a group of faculty, staff and students as they planned outreach activities around the Global Climate March on September 27th, and grew in scope as the community rallied around a collective concern for a sustainable future.

“We are proud to take our commitment to sustainability even further by signing the U.N. SDG Accord,” said John McMahon, Vanier College Director General. “Through this Accord, Vanier is committing to going carbon neutral at the earliest possible date following a comprehensive carbon audit.”

For information about the SDG Accord, visit https://www.sdgaccord.org/climateletter