Hamilton,
21
April
2021
|
15:24 PM
America/New_York

Mohawk named one of Canada's Greenest employers

College earns recognition for 8th consecutive year

Mohawk College has been selected as one of Canada’s Greenest Employers by the editors of the Canada’s Top 100 Employers project for the eighth year in a row.

Mohawk is one of four Canadian colleges named to the 2021 list, joining Humber College, Durham College and Red River College on the list this year. Canada’s Greenest Employers is an editorial competition recognizing employers that lead the nation in creating a culture of environmental awareness. A complete list of this year’s winners is available in a special section of the Globe & Mail. The competition has been running since 2006.

Katherine Flynn, General Manager of the Centre for Climate Change Management explained how Mohawk College has been able to achieve this recognition for eight straight years: 

“Mohawk opened the Sustainability Office in 2013 as part of a larger campus renewal and expansion effort. Since then, guided by our senior leadership team, staff and faculty have worked to integrate sustainability into the Mohawk College culture. Sustainability continues to be a defining value of the organization. It impacts every-day decision making and is ingrained in our strategic plans and operations management of the college. The Sustainability Office offers over 30 programs and services each year dedicated to engaging students and staff in learning sustainability skills. These programs range from events to waste management to energy and transportation. Mohawk continues to measure and report on its process in sustainability through reporting to AASHE, Greenest Employer and our own greenhouse gas inventories, which help to measure our carbon footprint. These are opportunities to reflect on what we’ve accomplished and where we need to go next.”

Here are some of the reasons why Mohawk College was selected as one of Canada's Greenest Employers (2021):

  • Mohawk College has taken impressive steps to ensure greater use of alternative transit, offering discounted transit passes for students (covered in part by a unique sustainability initiatives fee, payable by all students), a bicycle loan program managed by the sustainability office (free use of bikes), support for carpoolers (allowing up to four employees to share one parking pass) and Zipcar service discounts
  • Mohawk College continues to green its own fleet of vehicles with ongoing programs to improve fleet fuel efficiency and work towards ensuring that 75 per cent of replacement fleet vehicles are hybrid or electric
  • Mohawk College boasts a number of creative features across the campus, from community gardens, honeybee apiaries and pollinator gardens, to water bottle filling stations (to accompany a disposable water bottle ban), and a unique waste management zone in one cafeteria, which features recycling stations and a proper place to wash reusable mugs, containers and cutlery

Check out how Mohawk stayed green during the COVID-19 pandemic (here) 

Learn more about Mohawk College Sustainability (here)