Sustainability

About Trinity

Trinity College’s Integrated Sustainability Initiative is transforming how students live, learn, experience and engage with sustainability.

Students tending to the urban rooftop farm at the Lawson Centre for Sustainability

Trinity College’s Integrated Sustainability Initiative aims to transform the student experience by integrating sustainability education and practices into daily life at the College:

Academic and co-curricular programming
Research opportunities
Experiential learning
Student life experiences

The Initiative’s innovative features for teaching, learning and research include:

Farm-to-table program
Urban agriculture, including rooftop farm
Dedicated teaching and community kitchen
Food systems research

Both the Community Kitchen and the George and Martha Butterfield Rooftop Farm will provide integral platforms for community programming and partnership. The Initiative also promotes awareness of the connections between environmental and human well-being to supports healthy and sustainable living environments.

Trinity students, faculty, staff and alumni at The New Farm, October 2024

The Curriculum

We offer sustainability learning in various arenas: through our Margaret MacMillan Trinity One Program’s Butterfield Environment & Sustainability stream, upper-year sustainability-focused courses, student independent research opportunities, and student-led events.

Lawson Centre for Sustainability: render

The Space

What makes the Lawson Centre for Sustainability truly unique is that it features all the major sustainability components in one facility, including mass timber, a geothermal exchange system and a rooftop farm.

Urban Agriculture Food Systems Lab

Students gain hands-on experience through the Initiative’s Food Systems Lab who promote socially just and ecologically sustainable food systems. Members of the team work on the George & Martha Butterfield Rooftop Farm and the St. Hilda’s College Pollinator Gardens.

Sustainability Champions

In 2019, thanks to a generous $10 million gift by Trinity alumnus Brian Lawson and U of T alumna Joannah Lawson, the College launched the Integrated Sustainability Initiative. In addition to integrating sustainability into all facets of the College, the Initiative will transform the built environment through the College’s new building, the Lawson Centre for Sustainability. The Lawsons’ vision and support will enable Trinity College to build upon its commitment to the environment and responsible stewardship by creating a new model in which students both ‘live and learn’ sustainability.

Partnerships

The Faculty of Arts & Science and the School of the Environment have partnered with Trinity College to support the Sustainability Initiative. The School of the Environment is an interdisciplinary hub that joins disciplines, departments and colleges across the University of Toronto to address today’s pressing environmental challenges. Forging partnerships with the wider community, the School accelerates and nurtures new initiatives through a faculty of diverse environmental experts. The School also hosts undergraduate and graduate academic programs of environmental sustainability in the humanities, natural sciences and social sciences.

Meet the Team