SEEDS Sustainability Program | UBC Campus & Community Planning

SEEDS is the primary research & development function within Campus + Community Planning. With two decades of experience, the SEEDS Sustainability Program connects faculty and students with institutional priorities to advance key sustainability and wellbeing policies. Through UBC’s Campus as a Living Lab approach, we mobilize research, student learning, and operational expertise to deliver actionable, evidence-based solutions that support university-wide goals.

Why Work with SEEDS

Direct access to faculty expertise, applied student research, and emerging best practices
Ensure that UBC policies, plans, and operational decisions are informed by professional insights and expertise
Ensure that UBC policies, plans, and operational decisions are supported across units for successful adoption and implementation
Enables faculty to enrich courses with meaningful, applied inquiry that aligns with UBC’s commitment to evidence-informed education
Collaboration across boundaries
Prepare students for societal impact

What to Expect When Working with SEEDS

SEEDS takes a collaborative and community-driven approach by bringing together different groups on campus to turn big sustainability and wellbeing ideas into action. We work with a wide network of committees, action teams, and working groups—many led or co-led by SEEDS—to uncover research needs, set direction, and mobilize faculty, staff, and students. SEEDS also hosts focused R&D sessions and Research-to-Action symposiums. These gatherings help surface emerging issues, guide research priorities, share results, and accelerate adoption of effective interdisciplinary sustainability solutions across campus.

This approach ensures every project starts with the right foundation: aligned with policy priorities, informed by operational realities, and strengthened by academic expertise.

We also partner with faculty to place each project where it fits best—whether in a course as experiential learning or as a co-curricular, mentored research opportunity. Throughout the entire project lifecycle, SEEDS supports ongoing collaboration among everyone involved, making sure research is meaningful, actionable, and ready to make a real impact.

Driving Innovation and Sustainability Leadership

SEEDS supports the advancement of a suite of Sustainability Action Plans and other affiliated university plans pertaining to sustainability and wellbeing. SEEDS research collaborations directly informs the direction, goals, and implementation of these policies such as bird-friendly guidelines for buildings in the Green Building Action Plan and the UBC-specific holistic Residential Environmental Assessment Program (REAP). SEEDS research projects directly informed the development of UBC’s bold Climate Action Plan 2030 particularly around Scope 3 emissions (food, air, travel) and the complementary area of biodiversity.

Accelerate climate action
Maintain & enhance urban biodiversity
Alleviate food insecurity
Create circular economies
Foster wellbeing and inclusive, place-based communities

Flagship Initiatives

Climate-Friendly Food Label & Procurement Guide

From supporting collective action through the Climate-Friendly Food label* and toolkit to UBC’s bold food procurement guide, the suite of applied research and initiatives in this area establishes UBC as a national leader in advancing climate action through food systems.

Circular Economy & Zero Waste Innovation

SEEDS’ circularity cluster of work advances and improves campus-wide reuse initiatives, such as the Friendlier cup and container pilot as well as testing and optimizing innovative waste sorting systems, such as the Marine Drive Food Scraps Pickup Pilot Project.

Bird Friendly Design & Campus Tree Inventory

From informing important policy documents like UBC Bird Friendly Design Guidelines for Buildings, to supporting landscape management that enhances and conserves campus biodiversity such as the ongoing tree inventory and the pollinator demonstration meadows, SEEDS applied research projects help advance socio-ecological health and wellbeing at UBC.

*The innovative Climate-Friendly Label is comprehensive and data-intensive assessment of environmental impacts of UBC’s menu items, first of its kind in Canada