Camosun’s Lansdowne library plans to install new solar panels on its roof after receiving a grant of $97,000 USD from EBSCO Information Services, a provider of research databases, e-books, magazine subscriptions, and other services to libraries worldwide. The college is aiming to have the project completed in spring 2023.
Camosun manager of sustainability, transportation and parking Shannon Craig was one of the team members who put together the grant proposal, titled Array of Hope. Craig’s role at Camosun involves finding innovative ways—like implementing solar panels—to accomplish Camosun’s sustainability goals.
“My title has a couple of different aspects to it,” says Craig. “But on the sustainability side, it means I help coordinate sustainability at the institution, so we’ve had different sustainability plans, and I have to help lead those processes. It’s also finding different and innovative ways to implement sustainability at the institution, so this project is a good example of that.”
Craig says that sustainability is something everyone contributes to, whether positive or negative, and, therefore, needs to continue to be implemented in all departments at Camosun.
“Sustainability is not something that one person does or one department does,” she says. “It’s pushed forward by all people at our institution in different ways, like by the really eager and amazing faculty who are integrating sustainability into their curriculum in really unique ways. Or, our facility staff members in waste, custodial, maintenance, doing all the day-to-day things that integrate sustainability, like waste management.”
The college applied for the grant in 2018 but was unsuccessful. Craig says the success of their application this time around might have come from looking at the old application critically and utilizing a student’s perspective.
“The institution applied for it in 2018 and weren’t successful, so that’s how we originally found out about it, I think,” says Craig. “To get it going, Gwenda Bryan, who’s a librarian and an amazing champion for sustainability in our library, she brought it forward to the C4 group, which is the climate coalition on campus. We then got a team together of myself, Gwenda, and [Camosun College Student Society sustainability director] Amanda Garner. All three of us worked together to write it, and we looked at our old application and looked at ways to improve it… We really wanted to get a student’s perspective this time, which wasn’t part of our application last time.”
Craig says that the college is hoping for a 50-percent reduction of emissions from the library after the panels are installed.
“So that tackles one of our problems at our institution… The solar panels will be on the roof, but we’re also going to have a kiosk where the information will be available to see,” she says. “You’ll see energy that’s being saved in real time. It’ll be a passive way for students in the library to learn about solar generation and solar panels, but it could also be a way for different classes to integrate the real data into their course work.”
Craig hopes the solar panels will inspire conversations and action within other parts of Camosun and the community about finding innovative ways to reduce emissions.
“I think it’s a good opportunity to start having conversations about energy on campus and how we can move forward to reduce our emissions and think about innovative ways to do that, like solar panels,” she says. “It’ll be a really cool example for our institution, a case study, kind of, of what we can do and what kind of impact we can have… In the greater community, it’s a great opportunity for more people to learn about solar technology and what’s possible and what’s out there.”