The Sustainable Campus Collaborative (SCC) is a dynamic network of educational institutions across Alberta dedicated to working together to enhance campus and community resilience while curbing emissions. SCC empowers staff, faculty and students to drive positive change on campuses and in the communities they serve. By helping institutions integrate sustainable practices into campus operations, education, research and communities, SCC supports the creation of a greener future.

The Springboard Grant was used to improve climate resilience and reduce emissions. SCC did this by facilitating efforts to disseminate knowledge and awareness of technologies and techniques to improve campus environmental performance, fostering collaboration and networking to share best practices, lessons learned and hosting forums to share skills and expertise to implement energy efficiency, low carbon construction and renovation, renewable energy procurement, sustainable procurement, waste management, transportation electrification and sustainable agriculture and more. Funding was also used to support the development of robust sustainability policy and planning efforts, such as campus net-zero strategies and plans, while strengthening the ability of the collaborative to monitor and evaluate progress towards goals, locally and provincially, by systematically benchmarking and reporting impacts.

Together, SCC's capacity-building initiatives create a collaborative learning environment that fostered sustainable practices, strengthened resilience to climate change impacts, and drove significant emissions reductions on campuses and communities across the province.

SCC has been working with sustainability and facilities leaders from educational institutions across Alberta and beyond, since 2022. They coordinate the group, which functions as a community of practice, to accelerate campus sustainability, meeting quarterly to network and learn from colleagues and experts.

SCC has also coordinated a series of webinars to learn about and discuss the potential to collectively procure renewable energy to reduce costs and emissions, support regional economic growth and diversification, as well as student learning, employment and research. They have coordinated meetings to share experience and learning about campus fleet electrification. Furthermore, they have helped educational institutions access funding to install EV Chargers and provided training and support to campuses to help them create Sustainability Reports, GHG inventories, Sustainable Procurement Policies and processes and campus sustainability strategies to systematically reduce emissions and improve performance.

As a result of SCC's established network and effective campus engagement, Alberta Ecotrust partnered with them to deliver the Energy Neutral Building Information Exchange (ENBIX) program to educational institutions across the province. The benefits of ENBIX information sharing will resonate throughout SCC members across North America. The Springboard funding has helped Sustainable Campus Collaborative build capacity to continue to deliver these programs which support campus and community climate resilience and emissions reductions.

SCC accessed Springboard funding to contribute to Alberta Ecotrust's Focus Area: Climate Resilience & Emissions Reductions. Springboard funding was invaluable in building organizational capacity to increase impacts. The funds were used to update SCC's marketing materials, website, outreach and financial strategy to build the non-profit's capacity to engage and support post secondaries in their efforts to improve campus and community climate resilience and reduce emissions.

The materials were invaluable in helping SCC engage post secondaries in initiatives including, collective renewable energy procurement, fleet electrification, creating campus sustainability strategies, sustainable procurement workshops, GHG emission inventories and reduction strategies and plans, networking and learning about building emissions reduction strategies from colleagues and experts, as well as promoting SCC's partnership with Alberta Ecotrust to deliver ENBIX programs to post secondaries. Because of the grant, SCC was more effective at engaging institutions and potential partners at conferences, such as AASHE, Alberta Energy Efficiency and Innovation and CICan. The materials will continue to be used to support program delivery to reduce emissions, increase educational institution engagement as well as support opportunities for grant applications and corporate sponsorships.