SU passes amendments to Sustainability Policy

By Matty Hume, July 6 2018 —

At the July 3 Students’ Legislative Council meeting, SLC members unanimously passed amendments to the Students’ Union Sustainability Policy. The amendments comprehensively rebuild the policy, altering its definition of sustainability to mirror the one used by the United Nations.

“It’s an updated definition, which is what the UN uses and it’s derived from what they have,” SU vice-president operations and finance Kevin Dang said. “It’s really just those minor changes that keep things fresh and keep things relevant and accurate.”

Apart from the updated definition of sustainability, many of the changes include semantic updates, such as changing “costs and benefits” to “risks, gains, and opportunity costs” and changing “resources” to “natural resources.”
“I think [Cumming School of Medicine representative Jarin Thundathil] brought up a good point in the [July 3 SLC] meeting when he asked more about it: ‘What does this really mean?’ Because it’s not a policy that necessarily has forthright outcomes based in it,” SU president Sagar Grewal said. “But it does drive a lot of things. I think it’s one of our lesser known policies but I think it’s a very important one to have regardless.”

Dang added that the Sustainability Policy is relevant in directing daily operations of the SU and establishes their position on any future issues regarding sustainability.

“Keeping it updated for sure is a big part of [the amendments] and this establishes our position,” Dang said. “That’s why we have policy like this, to really direct us so that when we’re doing events, advocacy work or even our daily operations, we’re considering things like this.”

The amendments to the SU Sustainability Policy can be viewed here.