Aneesah Luqman (Left), Co-ordinator of City of Toronto Smart Commute Toronto Central, and Peiman Armand (Right), a volunteer with Live Green Toronto, table at Waterfront campus in November 2013. Photo: Alena Khabibullina/The Dialog
George Brown College’s (GBC) Green Team, created in 2005 to keep the college ecologically friendly and encourage more and more students and staff to do so, is starting a second year of their smart commute campaign.
“Every month we have a Go Green team with different themes like buying local food, reducing paper, saving energy, using reusable water bottles and so on,” said Green Team sustainability co-ordinator Stephanie Foster. “Every month is a different theme.”
“We are trying to encourage people to carpool to work or place of study. So we want to see who is driving from where and who has a single passenger vehicle that people are taking to the college verses taking GO Transit or TTC. And we will be setting up a carpool program internally that I think we can open up for students.” said Foster.
Initially created for the college’s employees, this month the campaign was set up for students as well.
Live Green Toronto, Smart Commute Toronto-Central and GBC’s Green Team set up carpool booths at St. James, Casa Loma and Waterfront campuses encouraging people to take anything but single-passenger vehicles, instead using optional transport such as bicycles, TTC or the GO train.
During three days of campaigning, about 10 per cent of the surveyed people, signed up, finding the initiative to reduce college’s transportation carbon footprint useful.
“There is a website (carpoolzone.ca) where the people can go on to and say ‘I am in North York and I am going to 200 King and I am looking for somebody to carpool with.’ So it will pair me up with people that live in my neighbourhood and that are going downtown,” said Foster.
“Let’s say I am going every day, I am leaving at nine and I am returning at five,” said Foster. “You can specify what your rides and needs are. Of course it is not a very good example because I can take a subway quite easily. Hopefully we are going to get more people carpooling who are coming from further afield and have to drive for one reason or another.”
A sustainable commuting program is a part of a Green Plan II which is a five-year green road map that models the college’s culture towards a greener future.
