On February 11, 2020, Mohawk College announced a historic voluntary Climate Change Leaders Partnership agreement with nine Ontario school boards including:
- Halton District School Board
- Halton Catholic School Board
- Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir
This large-scale learning partnership provides approximately 270,000 students with an opportunity to acquire new skills through both curriculum and research. The students will learn how to reduce their school's carbon footprint.
It helps Canada move one step closer to meeting its obligation to the Paris accord.
In addition, Mohawk College will introduce micro-credits in Climate Change and related topics for students, teachers and staff.
This exciting partnership explores enhanced experiential learning opportunities for students and teachers in science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM). Students will be better prepared to take advantage of co-op placements, apprenticeships and new jobs in a low carbon, circular economy.
To transform schools to lower carbon, the boards will examine deep building system retrofits for mechanical and electrical building systems. Once most of the energy waste is removed, the next phase is to develop on-site renewable energy systems such as solar, geothermal and battery storage.
One goal is to use the money saved from energy retrofits along with the income generated by energy produced from renewable technologies to fund capital investment. Financially, this will have no impact on taxpayers, and will create new jobs, apprenticeships and student co-ops.
Today, the partners gathered to sign a non-binding, collaborative memorandum of understanding, agreeing that the climate crisis is well documented and the path is clear:
We must dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to a low-carbon economy.
Working together, they commit to increase their efforts to help solve the climate crisis and explore opportunities to combine technology demonstrations with experiential learning, while building the capabilities and capacity to transform to a low-carbon community.
Climate Change Leaders Partnership School Boards
- Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board
- District School Board of Niagara
- Grand Erie District School Board
- Halton Catholic District School Board
- Halton District School Board
- Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board
- Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board
- Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir
- Niagara Catholic District School Board
“Mohawk College has been recognized as a national leader in institutional sustainability. We have learned important lessons in building construction, energy and water conservation, and facilities management. We are excited to share our experiences with area school boards, their employees and students," stated Ron McKerlie, President, Mohawk College.
"Working together, this partnership will make a significant impact on the carbon footprint of our schools while providing students with the knowledge and skills they need to be sustainability minded citizens for life,” continued McKerlie.