Bold Aspirations for a Sustainable Future
2017-2020 Strategic Directions
In the summer of 2017, the Sustainability Action Fund team and Board of Directors sat down to discuss its long-term goals for the organizations. Following these discussions, four (4) key directions were chosen.
Enable project autonomy, sustainable growth and long-term success
- Develop long-term partnerships with research centers, the community sector and the private sector
- Diversify our funding sources
- Get matching funds from the Concordia University administration by 2020
- Improve and revamp the SAF reporting system by December 2017
- Develop a post-funding support program that would include regular debrief events with funding projects by December 2017
- Connect project teams with professors, researchers and practitioners in their field
- Develop a toolkit of action items to complete prior to launching a long-term project
- Organize networking and educational events that cater to the needs of long-term projects
- Develop a partnership with a relevant organization or hub by 2018
- Develop a special funding and/or support program for long-term projects (in collaboration with our partner(s)) by December 2018
- Build partnerships with the Concordia Administration for integrating some pilot projects within the university’s operations
Strive for organizational excellence
- Next steps: develop a governance handbook that would include all internal HR and governance policies
- Next steps: meet with the HR committee to evaluate progress made in 2016-2017 and set new goals
- Create an online interactive application platform for applicants by Fall 2017
- Enhance the “resource” section of our website by Fall 2017
- Provide live access to key data and impact metrics by 2018
- Develop a database for internal metrics by September 2017
- Collaborate with researchers to develop a mixed method for analyzing the overall impact of SAF funded projects on the Concordia campus and the student community: by 2018
- Collaborate with Sustainable Concordia, the EH&S team and researchers to measure the culture and practices of sustainability on campus
- Develop a financial literacy workshop series throughout the school year in partnership with other organizations
- Offer information sessions or mini-workshops on selected topics
Foster inclusion, diversity and interdisciplinarity
- In collaboration with the SAF ambassadors, organize open inclusive events for networking, co-creation and reflection
- Create a virtual platform for project teams to exchange ideas and collaborate
- Presentations during department and faculty meetings
- Use the 2017-2018 university orientation to test and explore new outreach methods:
- Classroom presentations
- Targeted networking events
- Residency in certain areas on campus
- Tabling in the EV, JMSB buildings and the Loyola campus
- Next step: meeting to decide how we can encourage interdisciplinarity and set measurable goals
Explore the campus as a living laboratory for sustainability action
- Collaborate with the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Office of Community Engagement to promote experiential learning activities on campus
- Build partnerships with existing programs (Sustainability & Diversity Minor, SCPA, Management, Geography etc.) to further integrate their experiential learning with Concordia’s on-going sustainability projects
- Partner with the Leadership in Sustainability Major (Geography department) for their capstone project and their other experiential learning activities
- Collaborate with Concordia sustainability research centers and hubs to use sustainability projects on campus as case studies for existing and new research projects
- Next steps: contact research centers and the Shift social innovation hub to explore collaboration opportunities
- Collaborate with the Concordia University Press
- Collaborate with researchers to develop a Journal of Applied Sustainability
- In collaboration with research centers, organize interactive exhibitions of sustainability action research on campus