The president of Hamilton, Ont.’s, Mohawk College admits the learning facility’s commitment to an “ambitious” climate action plan will cost millions over the next seven or eight years.
“Leading by example” is how the college will fight the climate crisis targeting “net zero” in operations and education by 2035.
“It includes things like replacing gas-fired boilers with electric boilers (and) re-lamping the entire campus to move away from fluorescent lamps to LED lighting,” president and CEO Ron McKerlie explained.
“It will require generating more electricity, which we do right now through solar, but we also buy electricity off the grid.”
Another pillar of the initiative is training “climate leaders of the future” by embedding sustainability across the curriculum and supporting research with community partners.
“We’re launching a new School of Climate Action which will have the ability to train up to 1,200 people just in low carbon jobs, which there is a huge demand for right now,” McKerlie said.
“And then … around research, and it’s really working with our industry partners and the goal is to deploy more than 50 solutions to the climate crisis by 2030.”
He says the creation of about 140 micro-credentials is in the plan, as well as bachelor of technology and sustainability and bachelor of management and sustainability programs.
The school hopes to plug graduates into a demand for jobs coming from industries like energy and transportation.
“There’s a lot of transportation jobs around electric vehicles and a lot coming from construction things for the skilled trades, for example around heat pump technology,” according to McKerlie.
A recent survey of the college student body revealed close to 70 per cent of students either “always” or “often” wonder about the impacts of climate change and how it may affect them.
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