Photo: Jens Ourom

At first glance, the University of British Columbia’s on-campus incorporation of a biodiversity museum might not resonate as a particularly good omen for our natural world and ecosystems. Thankfully, it is more an indication of the path that UBC hopes to help guide humanity away from, as opposed to the route it has accepted as inevitable.

John Robinson, executive director of the UBC Sustainability Initiative, sits in his office across from the Beaty Biodiversity Museum, overlooking an artfully overgrown and, yes, green courtyard.

“We, uniquely, can be society’s test bed for sustainability,” he says. “We can prove out the technology and the economics in a simpler institutional environment, and then work with partners and say, ‘How would we do this in a more complex environment?’ ”

Indeed today, the billion-dollar catchphrase at UBC is “living lab,” and it would be a herculean challenge to spend any significant amount of time with any member of the administration and avoid speaking about the subject.

At this stage, most of the living lab schemes are conceptual, yet some have moved from imagination to realization. Among the most conspicuous of these are the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS), a 60,000-square-foot homage to UBC’s environmental commitment, and the Bioenergy Research and Demonstration Project (BRDP). The CIRS building aims to reach new heights

in terms of sustainable infrastructure: a building that is “net positive,” incorporating geoexchange, rainwater harvesting, solar photovoltaics, salvaged pine beetle-killed timber and greenroof technologies. Robinson and his team are also focused on housing a community that is “happier, healthier and more productive”. The BRDP will harness Vancouver Parks’ biomass waste and convert it into 7.5 per cent of UBC’s electricity needs.

In its quest for sustainability, UBC is naturally endowed with a variety of competitive advantages. It boasts unparalleled autonomy for a university—its endowment lands are outside of the City of Vancouver’s jurisdiction— and BC Hydro already provides the school with the vast majority of its clean electricity from hydropower.