“Sustainability is not just about the environment,” said Dr John B. Robinson, a professor in the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability and the new Director of Sustainability at UBC.

“The whole point of the sustainability concept is that it includes the social and the economic, and, some people say, the cultural and the institutional.”

A native of Northern Ontario, Robinson’s initial interest in sustainablility came from taking an environmental studies course in his freshman year at the University of Toronto, where he received his PhD in 1981. Robinson recalled an incident where someone he knew picked up a beer can, squeezed it in his hand and threw it in the lake, declaring “That’s what I think about environmentalism.”

“That was about the early 70s—it is inconceivable today,” he said. “There’s been a massive increase in awareness and now it has become something that companies…and governments feel compelled to be seen doing something about.”

Robinson was the lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1995, 2001, and 2007. The IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008. “It was really important to IPCC and to the issue because it recognized an acknowledgement, first of all, that this was something important,” he said on the experience. “Secondly, it wasn’t just about the environment, but about human development and issues such as social development.”

“The thing about sustainability is that it is pervasive, it is everything. No matter what field you are in, there are sustainability dimensions to it,” Robinson added, when asked what he would most like students to know about the concept of sustainability and the environment.

“We are the key generation because by 2060 or 2070…global population growth is going to level off—that is the best expectation—at about 9.3 billion people.”
Robinson believes that condemning people for not being environmentally conscious can be counterproductive. “Guilt-tripping people to change their individual personal behaviour,” he explained, “can be sometimes ineffective. It can induce apathy and denial.”

Instead, he prefers to look at the larger picture. “If we change these larger systems that we live within, they themselves will start to change their original behaviours.”

As Director of Sustainability, Robinson’s main goal will be to focus on research and partnerships, teaching and learning curriculum, and the operation of the physical plan of the university itself.

“Those are often quite separate domains—especially as the operational side is quite separate from the academic side—we have the chance to integrate those, and to transform the physical campus and to treat every part of the campus, every building, every technology as a test bed for research and teaching on sustainability and for transformational practice.”

Robinson cites his graduate students as the primary motivation that continues to influence and inspire his work. “I look at them and I see a level of interdiscipline that I would not have imagined to see in the past,” he said. “I see a degree integration and sophistication that is really inspiring, as well as a deep commitment.”

Having the opportunity to work and interact with students is one noticeable change that has evolved in the study of sustainability throughout the past 40 years. “There wasn’t a single individual. It was more of a sense of being part of this large questioning that was happening in the 70s,” he said. “It was this sense that there was this big challenge, being put to us by a whole suite of people that was inspiring.”

However, Robinson doesn’t believe sustainability professionals are needed to remind people to be environmentally conscious. “We shouldn’t need sustainability professionals because it should be so embedded in what we do that it is automatic.”

“We have people like me because we are not doing it very much. Making myself obsolete is my goal.”