Lael Parrott, Director of the Okanagan Institute for Biodiversity, Resilience, and Ecosystem Services (BRAES), UBC Okanagan, Kelowna, BC, Canada, presented at the 2015 International Conference on Health Promoting Universities and Colleges. Conventional approaches to sustainability focus on a harm reduction and damage limitation agenda. The theoretical emergence of regenerative sustainability argues we should place social and ecological imperatives on equal footing, organizing around the idea that human activity can simultaneously improve environmental and human wellbeing. This session was used to explore the potential and practice of this sustainability narrative on higher education campuses. Universities and other higher education settings are unique in their ability to serve as living labs and agents of change for sustainability: they are single owner/occupiers, have a public mandate to create new knowledge and practices for community benefit, and integrate teaching and learning. To that end, UBC is transforming its campuses into living laboratories for sustainability. Faculty, staff and students, along with private, public and NGO sector partners, use the University’s physical setting, as well education and research capabilities, to test, study, teach, apply and share lessons learned, technologies created and policies developed. This talk reported on how academic and operational sustainability activities can support a vision for enhancing environmental and human well-being.

1. Placing
our
university
campuses
in
the
context
of
their
regional
landscapes
Dr.
Lael
Parro:
Director,
UBC
Okanagan
Ins4tute
for
Biodiversity,
Resilience,
and
Ecosystem
Services
(BRAES)
Associate
Professor,
Sustainability
The
University
of
Bri9sh
Columbia,
Okanagan
Campus
h@p://complexity.ok.ubc.ca
PHOTO: IAN WALKER

2. Human
health
and
well-­‐being
are
intricately
linked
to
the
sustainability
of
the
landscapes
in
which
we
live…
PHOTO: IAN WALKER

3. Photos: L. Parrott
A landscape is a complex mosaic of human and
biophysical components, the dynamics of which are
coupled across scales of space & time.

4. This coupling between humans and the environment at
the landscape scale is made explicit in the concept of
ecosystem services…
…the benefits humans obtain from ecosystems.

5. Ecosystem
services
include:
• food
• raw materials
• clean air
• erosion protection
• water flow regulation
• flood mitigation
• water purification
• biological pest control
• pollination
• soil generation and
retention
• aesthetics
• recreational
opportunities

6. The
monetary
value
of
ecosystem
services
• The value of ecosystem services provided by the biosphere was
recently estimated at $125 trillion per year (Constanza et al., 2014)
• Based on global average values for different land cover types,
ecosystem services provided by the Okanagan landscape would
be valued at a minimum of $6.7 billion/year (Parrott, 2014)

7. Ecosystem
services
are
directly
linked
to
human
health
and
well-­‐being
nagement of
mpossible to
l, and global
P), are doing
nd de Groot,
widespread
the relation-
understand-
atural assets
-being, and
well-being
ople, society,
the way we
how to build
ributions of
hanging this
Fig. 1. Interaction between built, social, human and natural capital required to
al. / Global Environmental Change 26 (2014) 152–158 153
Source: Constanza et al. 2014

8. Human Well-being
(Millennium Ecosystem Assessment)

9. Causes
of
ecosystem
service
loss
• Land use and land cover change due to human activities
• Fragmentation of natural habitats
• Disruption of ecological connectivity and flows

10. Each
landscape
provides
essenEal
ecosystem
services...
biodiversity
air filtration
water provisioning
recreation
crop production
timber production
(Schematic adapted from Foley et al., Science, 2005)

11. biodiversity
air filtration
water provisioning
recreation
crop production
timber
production
biodiversity
recreation
Seymour watershed, Greater VancouverRice fields in the Philippines
crop production
timber
production
Each
landscape
provides
essenEal
ecosystem
services
air filtration
water provisioning
(Parrott and Meyer, 2012, Frontiers in Ecology & the Environment)

12. ...
the
challenge
is
to
maintain
and
opEmize
them
in
the
context
of
an
increasing
human
footprint.
biodiversity
air filtration
water provisioning
recreation
crop production
timber production
Each
landscape
provides
essenEal
ecosystem
services...

13. What
is
a
sustainable
landscape?
• Sustainability is “the quality [a] system has if the
relationships between and within its subsystems are
able to persist and nourish each other.” (Bender, Judith &
Beilin, Ch. 14 in Bender, H. (Ed) Reshaping Environments, 2012)

14. What
is
a
sustainable
landscape?
Parrott, 2015, The relationship between complexity, resilience
and sustainability at the landscape scale, in review.

15. So
what
has
all
this
got
to
do
with
our
university
campuses?
Source: ok.ubc.ca

16. Ecosystem services are provided by the landscapes we
inhabit…
…and in which our university campuses are embedded.

17. Many of our environmentally unsustainable actions
arise from a loss of sense of place

18. UniversiEes
can…
• lead by example in creating a sense of place and connectivity
with the landscape in which they are situated
• use their campuses as living labs to explore ways to enhance
and nurture ecosystem service provisioning
• promote environmentally sustainable practices on campus
that decrease their institution’s ecological footprint

19. Conclusion
• ecosystem services provisioning by our landscapes is
essential for human health and well-being
• universities could be leaders in creating institutional
environments that maintain landscape-scale ecological
connectivity and foster a sense of place grounded in the
regional context

20. Placing
our
university
campuses
in
the
context
of
their
regional
landscapes
Dr.
Lael
Parro:
Director,
UBC
Okanagan
Ins4tute
for
Biodiversity,
Resilience,
and
Ecosystem
Services
(BRAES)
Associate
Professor,
Sustainability
The
University
of
Bri9sh
Columbia,
Okanagan
Campus
h@p://complexity.ok.ubc.ca
PHOTO: IAN WALKER