2021 Sustainable Hawk Fund Recipients

Six projects receive funding to take action on sustainability challenges

With 2020 bringing a share of challenges, the Sustainability Office was still able to provide the opportunity for staff, students, and faculty to apply to the Sustainable Hawk Fund. The Office is proud to announce the 2020-2021 recipients of the Sustainable Hawk Fund! This year there were a total of six recipients – all student groups – who demonstrated why their project deserved funding through a virtual pitch. Groups were required to prepare a 5-minute or less video that outlined how their project solves a sustainability challenge and would benefit Laurier and the greater community.

This year’s recipients of the Sustainable Hawk Fund are:

• Microplastic Awareness Campaign, led by Ryan Brady, the campaign will be designed to raise awareness and literacy surrounding Canada’s increasing reliance on plastics. A variety of digital postings (on social media and a website) will be designed to educate and inspire viewers. Specifically, the campaign will promote taking a 30-day challenge that will be designed to reduce everyday plastic waste.

• SmileTabs, led by Spencer Lynn, has a goal to reduce waste from toothpaste tubes by creating a sustainable toothpaste option that is accessible to everyone. By re-imagining the packaging and encapsulating the dentist-recommended amount of toothpaste in a water-soluble film, they will be creating a toothpaste option that results in no packaging waste.

• Food Justice Garden, led by Rosemary Ganton, is a partnership to transform decorative planters on the Waterloo main campus into food gardens to support food justice amongst Indigenous students and community members. Currently, many existing planters and beds are filled with ornamental plants, where some of those planters will be replaced with a food garden.

• Food Fight, led by Jessica Malcolm, looks to divert food that would otherwise end up in landfills. The goal is to assist restaurants in reducing their food waste in two ways. The first is through a subscription service to reduce raw ingredient spoilage and second, through providing an app for food to be picked up that is “end-of-life” at the end of the day.

• LASTXX (Last 20), led by Lauren Barnes, is developing a plastic pavement solution, which will supplement a portion of bitumen (the common binding agent in traditional pavement) with low-density polyethylene one of the hardest plastics to recycle.

• Smart Hawk Recycling, led by Reena Sakram, is an initiative that expands on Laurier’s current recycling program to decrease the amount of wrongfully wasted items that must be recycled properly. This Program creates convenience for students, an easier method to properly recycle their items. By introducing a program like the Smart Hawk Recycling Program, students are given the opportunity to place their used items somewhere central on campus.

Thank you to all of our applicants and recipients of the Sustainable Hawk Fund!

We would like to also recognize our Sustainable Campus Committee members, who helped judge the pitch presentations:

• Anneliese Denstedt, Facilities and Asset Management, Real Estate

• Devyn Kelly, Students’ Union President

• Ehaab D. Abdou, Faculty, Faculty of Arts

• Elizabeth LaPalme, Sustainability Office & Residence

• Leanne Hagarty, Faculty, Business Department

• Katarina Milicic, Facilities and Asset Management, Sustainability Office

• Mallory O’Brien, Web Services