Sheridan’s journey to creating a culture supporting sustainability begins with Mission Zero the College’s framework for institution-wide sustainability initiatives led by Office for Sustainability. Two current strategic plans define the mission:
The Integrated Energy and Climate Master Plan (IECMP) aims to decrease the institutions overall energy and carbon emissions by 50% by 2020 through focused investment over the next 5-7 years.
The Zero Waste Sheridan (ZWS) plan will help guide the institution to becoming a zero waste campus by 2020.
The Zero Waste Sheridan (ZWS) plan is an already familiar initiative to the Sheridan community with the introduction of the Organics stream and the rollout of Zero Waste bins in all campuses.
The Integrated Energy and Climate Master Plan (IECMP) is Sheridan’s long –term solution to reducing energy and greenhouse gas emissions. The projects associated with the IECMP are a series of upgrades and retrofits integrated into Sheridan’s foundation as a means to increase building efficiency and gain control of energy management. From the lights that illuminate our way to the air controlled in each room, every innovative feature was considered with sustainability and conservation in mind. Both the Trafalgar and Davis campus will continue to undergo renovations to upgrade lighting and controls, mitigate solar gain and thermal loss, replace and upgrade the Building Automation Systems (BAS), and integrate energy distribution and supply. Other on-going renovation projects, such as furnishing and installation of equipment, also have a focus on sustainability. What do all of these mean for Sheridan?
Sheridan will have complete control to prevent lights being left on 24 hours a day, improve building insulation, mitigate energy being wasted to heat or cool rooms, and reduce heat loss in heat distribution, among other benefits.
Having already garnered much success, Sheridan is on its way to becoming a national and community role model with world-class energy performance. There are some areas that require fine tuning and as such we welcome any feedback from the Sheridan Community so that we can direct our efforts to improve system operations. Send us your feedback at constructionfeedback@sheridancollege.ca.
In the coming weeks, we will introduce to you through Insider some highlights of IECMP’s energy conservation and climate mitigation projects. We will also showcase some new sustainable renovation features introduced into Sheridan’s infrastructure. We hope to share Sheridan’s sustainable vision with you as we work towards our Mission Zero goals. Please stay tuned!