Fanshawe's push toward a greener society

Now that the environmentalist mindset is becoming increasingly mainstream, addressing how future students will be prepared to tackle sustainability issues has become a subject of concern itself. How will future city planners and civil engineers design and arrange our cities with a sustainable, energy-efficient plan in mind?

“Every student in every course I teach is directly involved in applied research in sustainability,” said Thomas Davis, a professor of Civil Engineering at Fanshawe. “We hope to integrate this type of education across the curriculum.” Davis, a professor at Fanshawe College since 2008, said he hopes to further encourage the adoption of an environmentalist side to educating students who can put this knowledge to practical use. He brings to his job the experience of serving as a civil engineer for many years.

“Civil engineers are responsible for public health and safety in all projects they are involved with ... so by making buildings more sustainable, I can have a significant effect on our planet's health.”

Davis himself is no stranger to the environmental side of things, in addition to teaching, he runs a green business, Green-Tech Environmental Engineering Ltd. Green-Tech's consultation services range from renewable energy to removing environment health hazards, such as groundwater seepage, and asbestos. “Green- Tech's corporate philosophy includes a team approach to problem- solving,” said Davis.

This collective brainstorming approach to problem-solving has proven useful at Fanshawe, with the college-funded research towards a project called Utilization of Harvested Energy by Active Transfer (UHEAT).

With the goal of energy harvesting by combining the technologies of solar power, heat pump technologies and of course, energy storage, UHEAT ultimately targets making the everyday convenience of air conditioning hot and cold no longer wasteful and a guilty pleasure. “This research is not introducing the designer to a new process,” Davis explained, “but to new tools that can be used to make the current ones they use to answer design questions more effective and efficient.” In essence, rather than radicalizing the approach towards sustainability, UHEAT seeks to simply combine existing technologies into a coexistence that will allow for maximized energy savings and minimum wastage.

But what good is all this technology that seeks to improve the way we live if it isn't even being used in the first place? Political scandals and other such distractions seem to be clouding over issues like the importance of the push for making things greener in the city of London. “Since buildings consume 40 per cent of all energy, they are responsible for a significant contribution to the greenhouse gas emissions,” Davis remarked. “In this way, they are directly responsible for the deterioration of the air and water that we depend on for life.”

To truly have a town that can call itself eco-friendly, retrofitting buildings is the best solution, although it won't reverse the damage done by the construction of said building. But there is still hope, for, as Davis put it, “in many cases, older buildings are easier to adapt, because they historically had to depend on sustainable sources for daylight and ventilation”

Furthering the optimism of engineering hopefuls, Davis ended on a positive note, “The retrofit and upgrading required represents a monumental task, which I refer to as job security for our graduates.”