UMSU environmental sustainability commitee stilll seeks chair

MORGAN MODJESKI AND TESSA VANDERHART

Last year UMSU created a committee to find ways to improve campus sustainability — but the committee is currently without a chair and short of members to make that happen.

The environmental sustainability committee has been an ad-hoc committee of UMSU council since the 2004-05 school year, when it was started and chaired by Graduate Students’ Association representative Jason Kelly. Policy changes made by the 2005-06 UMSU council made the committee permanent, but like every UMSU committee this year it does not have the required number of members.

The committee, according to UMSU’s bylaws, is “responsible for recommending and implementing sustainability initiatives with regards to the Union’s businesses, services and activities, and liaising with the other on and off campus groups where possible.”

The committee is supposed to consist of a chair, the UMSU vice-president (internal), two council members and two students-at-large (selected by the UMSU selections committee). The committee is also required to have one Bannatyne campus student, and invite a representative from the University of Manitoba Recycling and Environmental Group (UMREG) to sit on the committee in a non-voting capacity.

Currently the committee is lacking a chair, members from UMSU council, and students-at-large.

Anders Annell, an UMREG representative, said that eight members of UMSU council and one volunteer have stepped forward to contribute time to UMREG, and wondered why UMSU was unable to find committee members.

UMSU vice-president (internal) Michael Einarson said that the committee is short on members because it’s a new committee. Einarson said that UMSU plans to repost the committee, along with the numerous other committee vacancies. As of Monday, Sept. 17, these positions were not yet posted.

In January 2007, UMSU-run Degrees restaurant began offering recyclable, biodegradable takeout containers, and UMSU began working with the university’s Waste Prevention Office to compost garbage.

Einarson said the committee also plans to make other UMSU-run businesses like IQs more environmentally friendly, as well as encouraging Aramark to do the same.

In 2005 and again in 2006, then-UMSU president Amanda Aziz (a former UMREG organizer) was reported in the Manitoban as saying that UMSU planned to prepare an environmental audit of campus. Einarson said that an audit is still a goal of UMSU, but may not be feasible.

“We do work fairly close with UMREG the environmental and recycling group as well as WPO (waste prevention office) and they do a lot of audits of buildings, waste audits they’re called which is the trash coming out of buildings and that sort of stuff , so we usually look at their data and we will work in conjunction with whatever activities they are planning. Presently a campus-wide audit is a massive undertaking and it might not be [possible],” Einarson said.

“UMSU needs to devise a plan,” said Maire McDermot, the university’s sustainability coordinator. “This plan will help UMSU set long and short-term goals that will eventually help them to reach a target.”

The UMSU Policy Manual sets out seven goals for the environmental sustainability committee, including: using recyclable and biodegradable materials when possible, preventing waste, educating the university community, and implementing an environmental audit.

“The University of Manitoba Students’ Union is committed to being a positive force in the protection and enhancement of the environment, and recognizes its leadership responsibility of promoting environmental accountability,” the policy states.