Partnership means we maximize our contributions to lasting change (SDG 17) 

Judi Varga-Toth:Welcome!

Global Goals Week is about maximizing our collective impact towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It’s the perfect time for us to reflect on a unique CICan project: ImpAct.

So just a little bit of history, the project started in 2018 launched by CICan with support from the McConnell Foundation to not only support the shared values and aspirations of its members, but also to amplify the contribution of the college and institute sector to social and economic development, community well-being, and a sustainable future. What we now call the impact approach harnesses the positive effects of collective action to help Canada meet its national and international commitments to the SDGs. So, it’s really a project about bringing CICan members together to maximize our collective impact, which is central to the work that CICan does as a force multiplier.

So, what is this project? In total impact involved over 90 colleges and institutes working on over 30 different projects, initiatives, resources, and services linked to the SDGs. We now have nearly a third of CICan members, as signatories of the Global SDG Accord to amplify their own commitments to the SDGs and unleash their potential as changemakers.

The SDG Toolkit for Canadian Colleges and Institutes is an open educational resource that curates best practices in addressing economic, social, and environmental goals through an SDG lens. Overall, we can say that the project helped position CICan at the forefront of associations and thought leaders with respect to equity, diversity and inclusion and environmental sustainability. The “ImpAct” on the college and institute sector was incredible. So now what? Let’s dig in a little bit to get a better sense of what impact this project has had on two of our participating Member institutions.

But first, let me introduce myself. I’m Judi Varga-Toth and I’m the manager of ImpAct-Sustainability at Colleges and Institutes Canada. I’m joined by two dynamic and passionate colleagues who are major players in our ImpAct project working groups and led initiatives related to this project at their own institutions as well as contributing to the growth of others.

I have Brett Sharman joining me, Professor and Programme Coordinator from Confederation College, and Jeannette Miron, Registrar and Director of Strategic Enrolment Services at Canadore College.

Welcome to you both!

Jeannette Miron:

Thank you, Judi.

Judi Varga-Toth:

Thanks. Wonderful. So, let’s dig into the project a little bit and hear from you. Your experience, both professionally, the experience for yourself as well as the impact it’s had on your institution. We know that the project was funded by the McConnell Foundation, and it began with three project working groups of which you were each member of one of those 3 project working groups. And then one of you actually decided to start a fourth group and has chaired that group now for several years.

The project went on from 2018 to 2023, so I’m going to start with a question about the partnership approach that we used in this project. So, as you know, you were put into a group based on your interest, with other colleges and institutes that were interested in the same topic area. So, as you answer the question if you could mention which group you were part of just for context, I’d like to ask you, what did your institution accomplish by being part of this project? I know that’s a very large question, but I’ll start with you, Brett. What group were you part of and what did you accomplish?

Brett Sharman:

Thanks, Judi. Confederation College was part of the Social Entrepreneurship Working Group and then as you mentioned, we were also involved in creating that 4th Working Group in the SDG Accord. Our desire to be part of this was a keen interest in social innovation and social entrepreneurship, which I’ll comment on later. But in terms of what we accomplished through the ImpAct project; I think it helps to elevate our existing sustainability efforts. So, we were already doing some things. We already had a sustainability committee in place, and we had a history of sustainability actions. But I think being part of this national initiative just really helps provide a platform in which myself as an individual, but our college was able to just focus a little bit more on what we’ve been doing around sustainability and what we might want to do in the future. In terms of what we were able to finish within the impact project time. We for the first time really integrated sustainability explicitly into our strategic plan.

We were able to enhance our internal communication on sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals. We also hired a couple of interns which helped alleviate the fact that many of us that we’re working on sustainability were doing it on the side of our desk. So actually, having some interns do some of the work that needs to be done was really helpful. During that time, we also signed on to the SDG Accord and you mentioned I think a third of colleges and institutes across the country are now part of that, which is amazing. And through signing on to the SDG Accord, we did our first inaugural SDG audit. So, we took a stock take of what we’re currently doing in sustainability using the Sustainable Development Goals as a framework. And now because we’ve signed on to the accord, we’ve now committed to annual reporting, which we weren’t doing previously so this is just a snapshot of some of the things that we achieved just within the ImpAct project time. But of course, all of these things are ongoing as well.

Judi Varga-Toth:

Thanks, Brett. That’s fantastic. Really inspirational. So, Jeanette, how about you, what did you hope to accomplish joining the group that you did join?

Jeannette Miron:

So, for Canadore it was more of a reflect and learn from others, we were very new into the process we felt but realised soon as we started to work with other institutions that we were doing more than we had realised. So, it was a great eye-opener and learning best practices from other institutions was incredible. I was part of the ImpAct-Climate group. Our focus went into greenhouse gas emission inventories, and we’ve benefited by launching a greenhouse gas emission inventory at the college have two years now of data to work with. We’ve learned from the sector partners nationally on best practices to undertake with these initiatives and this has enabled our institution to achieve a significant goal within the short time frame, something we would not have been able to do on our own because we didn’t have a consolidated method in advancing that GHG inventory and also looking at the offset that is happening that we currently do and enhancing upon them as well as creating new programmes across the college.

Judi Varga-Toth:

Fantastic. That’s great. So, uh, a corollary to that question then. And I think you alluded to it, Brett, when you said these are ongoing. What did you hope, and do you hope to continue to achieve with what you’ve learned and who you’ve met in working with us over these years, Brett?

Brett Sharman:

I think as much as it was a catalyst to become part of the ImpAct initiative. I think it now offers a continual catalyst for our sustainability efforts. And I think you know; we’re really going to benefit in terms of developing more programming. I know that it’s starting to show up in our applied research as well. And while our initial hope of joining ImpAct was to focus on social innovation and social entrepreneurship and while that didn’t really manifest during the ImpAct project perse, I think there’s still a lot of opportunity for that to happen in the future. But definitely, it was a great platform to learn from other institutions. It’s helped shift the way that we look at sustainability, not just within our own walls, but look to see what the college sector is doing and so it creates a lot of this feeling that, you know, you’re not alone, that there are institutions that you can draw upon because Confederation College is, some people may know is a relatively small college compared to some of the bigger colleges in Canada. And because of that, we have some specific challenges when it comes to adopting sustainable practices. For example, how do we make this happen when we don’t have an existing sustainability office, as we might touch on throughout this conversation, we’ve made some headway in terms of getting. While we don’t have a sustainability office or department just yet, we do have our first person who is a full-time staff member that is now dedicated to managing our sustainability. And again, this didn’t happen through the ImpAct project but as part of the ImpAct project just after it, this happened this year actually. So that’s a great thing.

Judi Varga-Toth:

Great. So, you would say that it was part of the knock-on effect afterwards?

Brett Sharman:

Yeah, I would say it’s not explicitly linked, but implicitly for sure that has happened.

Judi Varga-Toth:

Wonderful. How about yourself, Jeanette? I know Canada has accomplished a lot in the last couple of years. Where do you have hope for the future and what you’re going to do?

Jeannette Miron:

So, as you know, Judi our primary goal was coming in to do the GHG inventory, but the added benefit was all of the wonderful projects that other colleges and institutes are doing. So, wherever they were along the continuum they were picking up pieces of information that some things that we were doing that were similar. So as a result of this experience, our college was able to leap forward. We feel in several initiatives, we instituted A sustainability coordinator. Jesse Russell has been working on the portfolio on many projects. Now we have that two-year inventory done. We also benefited from the funding for the intern position, and we have established a cross College task force that includes multiple individuals interested parties across the college finance, facilities and the academic area. So that’s resulted in us undertaking now as scope 3 view. So, we’re trying to implement some of the scope 3 inventory pieces. We’re launching a forest inventory project with the help of CICan thankfully for that.
Linkages to the Global Skills Opportunity exchange programme for that project in particular, and forest inventory cross Internationally and then some research projects that are being undertaken at the school, we have the grow-pod that we’ve been working with. So, food security is another focus ends a research project that we’re working on.

Judi Varga-Toth:

Wow. Fantastic. That’s great. So, it’s a good segway because you’re talking about the collective action and the impact on so many different aspects of your institutions. So, the 2030 agenda is something that was meant to take 15 years to reach those 17 very ambitious goals. So we’re halfway through, we only have seven years left collectively to accomplish these SDGS. What do you think as a network of colleges, you’re part of a large network, Canada’s largest post-secondary network.

What can we do collectively as well as continue to do it individually, institutions to ensure that our actions contribute to positive change? Do you have a reflection on what more could be done collectively as Canada’s largest post-secondary network?

Brett Sharman:

I’ll comment. You know, I think unfortunately we’re well past the point of individual action being able to meaningfully move the needle on the sustainability challenges we face globally and by individually I mean you know as an individual person, while it is important that we walk the talk and we lead by example, particularly when it comes to climate change and other pressing environmental issues, we just don’t have the time to influence individually to move the needle in terms of reducing emissions. That’s why we need system-level change or at the very least organizational level change. But then moving up to system level change, and it’s why I personally feel like the ImpAct initiative that CICan lead was just so powerful because it brought together individually, as individual organisations so we can do some interesting things, but when we get together and we start learning from each other and not avoiding some of our similar mistakes, sharing resources rather than reinventing the wheel, I think that’s where we can get really meaningful and rapid change. And I think that’s what we need to focus on quick change, and I think these national initiatives help with that, they help provide that platform, they help provide that learning, they help provide that inspiration, they help provide some of the necessary things that we need. For example, money always helps, interns always help, but also the resources and the sharing of opportunities as well.

Judi Varga-Toth:

Great, thank you. Jeanette, how about you? What do you see as our collective opportunity?

Jeannette Miron:

I’ll echo Brett’s comments and completely agree with everything that he said on the funding pieces. So, the McConnell Foundation funding helped significantly to bring us together and work collaboratively. And as he said those group efforts really lift us up quicker and faster. But the beauty of colleges and institutes is our connection to community and employment locally. So, the information that we garner nationally through these groups are able to be quickly shared with the community through our Community networks backwards. So, you have that collective moving forward and then going back to the community to share that information and it helps our home communities then lift forward again. So that is the power there. So, for CICan in particular is just asking for more of that funding. As Brett said, that’s so helpful, particularly when you bring together collaborative work.

Judi Varga-Toth:

Excellent. That’s a really good point and I agree with you. It’s been a real opportunity to watch, watch things grow and spread from an initial 22 institutions to over 90 who ended up benefiting in some way from the work that you all started. So, Jeanette, I know that both your institutions have best practices or case studies in the SDG toolkit that we created.

Would you share with me some ways that I think your institution has used that to grow your knowledge or in other ways?

Jeannette Miron:

So, for us, the guide certainly has helped get our task force started. It also helped guide some of the strategic initiatives taken by our Sustainable Development project leader. When he began in April of 2022 and through the development of our living plan, which was released in September 2022, many institutions faced the same challenges, each with their own unique circumstances. The case studies provided a diverse array of solutions to some of the challenges we all face. There are also opportunities that provide helpful guidance to those looking to implement some similar projects within their institutions.

Judi Varga-Toth:

That’s fantastic. Great. Do you want to add anything, Brett?

Brett Sharman:

I think it’s going to be a wonderful resource going forward and it’s still somewhat in its infancy because hopefully, this product will live on for a while yet. We’ve certainly contributed some of our practices and approaches in that and I think that’s been very helpful because it’s helped us think again outside of our institutional walls and I know that that we will continue to use that resource going forward.

Judi Varga-Toth:

Fantastic. That’s great. So really let’s start to wrap up a little bit and in your own words, why do the SDGs matter for a post-secondary institution? It’s a big question, but I know you’re both passionate advocates for the SDGs. So why does it matter for post-secondary?

Brett Sharman:

Perhaps I’ll just start; I think education plays a vital role within society where obviously a place where we educate people. So, we particularly within colleges we are providing the skills that society needs and there’s no more pressing skill than green skills and transitioning to a sustainable economy. So, we have a fundamental role to play. They are also creating the mindsets that we need to transition to a more sustainable society. So, I think again, you know, educational institutions play a vital role there.

As Jeanette mentioned, because of the scope of Canadian colleges and institutes, we are in every community and we touch so much of Canada, so the breadth and scope of our impact collectively is massive. And I think you know, when it comes to the SDGs in particular, they provide the universe universally applicable framework for contextualizing and communicating sustainability. So, sometimes sustainability means different things to different people, so what I really like about the SDGs as a framework is that it’s not just an environmental or social issue. Sometimes people think about sustainability from a financial perspective. You know, it takes in those different areas, the economic, social, and financial aspects of sustainability. And I think while seventeen goals are a lot and sometimes it’s a bit unwieldy to use because sustainability is such a complex issue. It’s hard to imagine how we could have less goals, but you know, I think as a tool for communicating sustainability to a wide audience, it’s a great framework and I think more educators, no matter their discipline need to integrate these goals into the content they teach to show it’s everyone’s responsibility to contribute to sustainable development. Again, I think the goals help do that.

Judi Varga-Toth:

Thank you very much and thanks for pointing out the reach of our network. We like to share that 95% of Canadians live within 50 kilometres of one of your collective 700 campuses across the country and 86% of Indigenous peoples live within 50 kilometres of our campuses. And so indeed together, we do have a massive reach. So, Jeanette, what about you? What’s right about the SDGs for the post-secondary sector?

Jeannette Miron:

For colleges and institutes in general, but in Ontario specifically, colleges are mandated to provide access and reach to the community and serve a community purpose. For us, the SDGs are about creating that access and creating an equal opportunity for all who want to participate in education and post-secondary training to have that access. And the important piece with the SDGs is to try and find each of within the 17 SDGs, how we can enable students to get access when they want access, where they want access and as you know, Judi, we have a significant network through our Indigenous institute partnerships to create access in community. We also have other partnerships where educational access with our community members through specific programmes to garner student interest in returning to post-secondary education for those that have been out of it for some time and those are usually underrepresented groups. So, the important piece for us and most post-secondary secondary educators should be that equity in access to education, creating that opportunity where it might not have been evident to students and enabling them to achieve the goals they want to achieve.

Judi Varga-Toth:

Fantastic. So last question then, what advice would you be willing to share with your colleagues across the country listening to our little chat today who are looking to inspire, celebrate and advance the SDGs on their campuses? What would you what would be your best advice, Jeanette?

Jeannette Miron:

Start the start somewhere. Small actions. Do you make a difference in add-up overtime? So as stated we have a unique opportunity to reach and inspire a larger audience as colleges and institutes practising the SDGs is good for the planet and as an institution, it’s good for business and it helps ensure that our graduates are prepared and equipped to continue the important work in their future careers and to help build more SDG advocates to help towards the goal.

Judi Varga-Toth:

Fantastic, Brett. How about you? What would be your words of wisdom for other institutions?

Brett Sharman:

I would definitely Eco what Jeanette mentioned about just making a start. How important that is. And there are lots of different ways to make a start, and I think for every institution that could look very different, but something that we’ve found very helpful here at Confederation College is signing the SDG Accord in itself, it doesn’t create the change, but it can help catalyze the conversations. It can help catalyze the formation of working groups, the committees. It can help catalyze action at a senior level because it requires a senior level person in signing the SDG accord if that’s not available to you look to try to see if you can set up an initial working group or Sustainability committee. If you already have some existing ones, maybe look at expanding them because often sustainability committees have historically been housed within the operations side of things, and perhaps just focusing on environmental initiatives.

But when we think about sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals that includes social aspects around equity, as Jeannette mentioned. So, looking at refreshing and revising existing committees or working groups. Hire a Career-Launcher Intern, you know those have been so valuable and actually getting some stuff done while people like me and Jeanette can do stuff on the side of our desk. You know, it’s really helpful to have someone that’s dedicated to working on it, whether it’s an audit, whether it’s a report, whether it’s a communication initiative, all those things help. And then lastly, I would just say get involved with CICan’s ImpAct or related initiatives. I’m pleased to see that now sustainability is part of CICan’s conferences and other events. You know, CICan in my experience has been a great organisation to work with and it’s just been really rewarding and impactful in our efforts over the last few years.

Judi Varga-Toth:

Well, thank you very much for those kind words. Thank you to both of you, Jeanette, and Brett for taking time at the very beginning of a school year when you’re both incredibly busy with the work that you’re doing. And, I can say that you were both incredibly dedicated participants in this project from the beginning. And I know you both continue to champion this work now that you have some other colleagues who’ve been given some parts of these roles and we really appreciate the work that you did and all of the members of the project working groups.

During Global Goals Week and everyday and every month and every year, colleges and institutes demonstrate that this collective action is what does contribute to real positive change for people and for our planet. Indeed, it’s the only thing that is working together and we are incredibly proud of this project and other CICan projects and programs that involve all of you our members, domestically and internationally, which are all tied to two or three or more of the SDGs. As you said, Jeanette, the reason for the existence of our network is to provide access and we are all committed to doing that, and the SDGs give us a really ambitious and exciting goal to work towards. We can say we only have seven years left for this one, but we actually still have seven years left. So, there’s no better time than now to get involved.

So, thank you to you both. And thank you to everyone who listened to our podcast during Global Goals Week. We hope you enjoyed this special edition.

Have a great day.