47% of Linden House is Green Spaces certified

Residence Assistant put outer space on hold — briefly — to help win the Green Spaces Challenge

Originally published April 2016.

Jon Andre Briones is putting one of the University of Alberta’s newest residences on the map for their dedication to sustainability. The third year astrophysics student helped Linden House on 90 Avenue win the Green Spaces Challenge by encouraging his fellow residents to evaluate the sustainability of their lifestyles.

“I personally got 42 per cent of my community involved. It’s a little lower than I wanted,” admits Briones. “I basically nagged the whole house for a couple weeks straight — all my emails, all my Facebook posts, I messaged people — I tried as much as I could.”

Linden House is less than a year old. It’s a brand new community and as the Residence Assistant, Briones is helping the community establish its culture, its feel. He calls Linden House a laid back, mature community. And it seems that they’re also very interested in sustainability, something he calls ‘a no-brainer.’

Nearly half of the residence participated in the Green Spaces certification program which helps residents identify every day ways to make their lifestyle more socially and environmentally sustainable. Briones was not surprised to see how well his residence performed.

“Linden residents are very good at recycling. I never see bottles in the trash can and the paper’s always recycled. We have automatic lights and they turn them off when they’re leaving, so that’s good to save energy,” said Briones.

Blueprint for your green space

But the Green Spaces program doesn’t only evaluate current behaviour. The program is also designed to give residents fresh, new ideas for how they can make their lifestyles even more sustainable. Briones learned a few new tricks himself and came up with a suggestion for how anyone in residence can lower their energy consumption.

“Just open up the blinds instead of turning on the lights. You will get natural sunlight, get some vitamin D, maybe crack open a window to make it less stuffy. Instead of having that electric light, natural light is so much better,” said Briones.

These sorts of ideas flow naturally from the Green Spaces program. With the Green Spaces Challenge, people like Briones were rewarded for spreading their ideas and for encouraging their neighbours to start thinking about sustainability. Along with Jon Andre Briones, Dominic Igbelina, Kelsey Rumberger and Naomi Milne each recruited between 9 and 16 other residents — and received Green Leader prizes for their efforts.

Briones thinks that the conversations they started are the Green Spaces Challenge’s most important outcomes. “Just telling people what things they can do to be more sustainable is really helpful. A lot of people just don’t know what to do. But if you expose them to something that maybe saves them resources, time and money, they’ll naturally want to do it,” said Briones.

A total of 129 residents from Lister Hall and east campus residences took part in the Green Spaces Challenge in February and March. While Linden House was tops in east campus, 1&2 Schäffer narrowly beat out 8 Schäffer to win in Lister Hall.

Learn how to get your own living space Green Spaces certified at sustainability.ualberta.ca/greenspaces

Written by Trevor Chow-Fraser for the University of Alberta’s Office of Sustainability.