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The purpose of this research was to describe oilfield workers in the Moose Mountain Provincial Park area in southeastern Saskatchewan views on climate change. This qualitative study, inspired by Grounded Theory, utilized fifteen, semi-structured interviews to analyze participants’ perspectives and experiences. For this research, climate change means, “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity and which is in addition to natural climate variability” (IPCC, 2014). This study has three main findings. First, participants have robust “sense of place” attachment that fosters environmental stewardship toward the Moose Mountain area. Second, participants hold conflicted understandings of climate change that alternate between the adoption of climate skepticism and acceptance of scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic climate change. Finally, this study demonstrates the importance of engaging in conversations with oil workers to facilitate a pluralistic narrative and navigate multiple worldviews to create understanding of a controversial topic in Saskatchewan.

Peatland communities in western Canada have slowly developed over thousands of years with wildfires being a constant influence on these systems. As fires move through mature peatland communities, the aftermath is an open landscape where pioneer peatland species establish and develop. The open landscape supports the growth of successional species to create a mature forest, which is then ready for the fire interval cycle to continue. Fire cycles have been a constant on the landscape with little disruption; however, as climate change in western Canada has altered precipitation and temperature regimes, typical vegetation succession patterns that establish after peatland fires may be changing. The Chisholm fire of 2001 burned over 116,000 hectares of forest in northern Alberta, with most of the area being peatlands (treed fens). Vegetation surveys were completed throughout 2018 and 2019 within the burned peatlands of the Chisholm area and compared to an unburnt control area to identify species richness, diversity, composition and vegetation trends. I found, within the re-establishing peatland, a healthy, thriving and diverse community that is developing towards a community similar to the offsite mature treed fen. After almost 20 years of recovery, the affected vegetation community is dominated by peatland species. With temperatures and precipitation levels continually changing, the area is at a transition state in which the community may be maintained on the landscape or the area may experience a regime shift to a drier state.

China’s rapid economic growth in the past four decades has led to serious negative impacts on ambient air quality. Studies identify volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as the major cause of smog, which harms both human health and the environment. Nevertheless, VOC control faces tremendous challenges, especially when small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the furniture sector that account for a large percentage of VOCs in China find current, on-the-market technologies impractical and costly. To alleviate this problem, SunHub Inc. proposed a comprehensive 4-stage solution for abating VOCs at all stages of the production process. My study uses action research to assess the sustainability of SunHub’s solution and finds that it is indeed sustainable. To reach this conclusion, I conduct a two-phase case study. The first phase reviews the literature to determine the appropriate sustainability indicators for assessment, while the second phase analyzes SunHub’s documents and email correspondence with stakeholders.

Engaging employees in CSR programs contributes to the overall success and progress of these sustainability initiatives, while simultaneously increasing employee job satisfaction by adding meaning and purpose within the workplace. However, ineffective CSR communication may hinder employee engagement. Considering the reciprocal benefit and challenge of communicating CSR to employees, this study aims to understand how internal communication can support organizational efforts to encourage employee participation in CSR by answering three research questions: (1) how is internal communication used to communicate sustainability initiatives within a workplace?; (2) how does communicating sustainability initiatives contribute to employee engagement?; and (3) what are the best approaches to communicating sustainability initiatives to employees? Using a qualitative exploratory research methodology, thematic analysis of nine interviews with sustainability and communication managers from Canadian companies revealed several overarching themes: adopting a wide array of communication methods and engaging in two-way communication can reach a wider audience and accommodate individual needs; message co-creation that allows employees the opportunity to voice their own ideas and have message ownership may contribute to increased engagement and reputational risk mitigation and collaboration between sustainability managers and communication teams or cross-functional teams supports information dissemination across an organization. Findings also revealed that fragmenting the meaning of sustainability may contribute to the issue of tangibility and the continued challenge of effectively evaluating employee engagement beyond quantitative data.

Red Deer, Alberta hosted Canada’s largest amateur sporting event in February 2019, the Canada Winter Games (CWG). There is little research on sustainability on the scale of a national amateur sporting event or impacts within the host community. Therefore, the research questions asked: can the introduction of sustainability initiatives through a sporting event truly have a lasting impact on the future of sustainability practices in Red Deer? Pre- and post-Game interviews were conducted with the sustainability managers and individuals at organizations involved in planning the Games. The results highlight that local community members are instrumental in affecting change by setting goals and it is critical to engage in planning sustainable initiatives as early as possible. Hosting the Games served as a catalyst for a range of sustainability initiatives in the City of Red Deer, which suggests that sustainable practices are likely to grow in the community.

Hope is often credited as an inspiration for action and, in difficult circumstances, a protection against despair. But ill-considered hope can be an unreliable helper. If people choose only to hope for a happy outcome, rather than acting in their own interest, they risk losing the opportunity to improve their situation. Putting faith in hope alone, they may also find that, after crossing a critical marker, hope’s protection evaporates, suddenly and at great emotional cost. In that context and in the face of the gathering threat of climate change, this thesis records the search for a strategy that is better than hope – more active, robust and resilient. The search, including interviews with five high-profile and highly accomplished exemplars, suggests there might be value in simply recognizing the full extent of the threat and then embracing action in pursuit of a goal that is worthy, irrespective of a hoped-for result.

Several regulatory policies have been implemented in the past five years on methane mitigation and oil sands industry emission in Alberta, Canada; however, most effective technologies in methane reduction remain to be explored in the context of these new policies in the Alberta oil sands industry. The purpose of this research was to determine the most effective technologies, based on economic and environmental criteria, to mitigate methane emissions from Alberta’s upstream oil sands processes. This was achieved through qualitative analysis of current technologies, and the development and application of a qualitative risk analysis and quantitative cost-benefit analysis considering economic and environmental factors. I concluded that high risk technologies have the lowest ratio of cost to environmental benefit and suggest that more effective technologies incur a greater risk to the industry; conversely, precise emission inventories need to be completed in order to identify areas of high emissions in individual cases.

Consumers are increasingly conscious of the toll that plastic has had on the environment, and packaging waste in particular is now under global scrutiny for its devastating effects. Although considered a scientific wonder for most of the last century and unquestioningly tied to modernity and convenience, many consumers are grappling with their plastic consumption as they come to terms with the extent of the environmental crisis. Increasingly, consumers worldwide are looking at their own behaviours and resolving to do what they can, including efforts to reduce and refuse plastic packaging. This study explores my experiences with plastic-free shopping by learning new behaviours, in an effort to develop lasting habits. Using a social practice theory approach, this autoethnographic account of my experience of a 30-day challenge, shares the complexities of trying to change my grocery shopping behaviours and how the ripple effects of these new behaviours were experienced in other areas of life. This research suggests that plastic-free shopping has the potential to be a driver of social change, but it exists within larger societal practices that present interesting challenges for individual sustainability. https://viurrspace.ca/bitstream/handle/10613/23538/Hethey.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y

Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTPs) frequently use anaerobic digestion (AD) to break down organics to reduce the total volume of biosolids produced. As population increases, cost of biosolids disposal increases while regulatory limits tighten. Bioaugmentation is an innovative process that enhances the biological activity within AD systems to improve performance through the addition of biocatalytic compounds (BC). Currently there is a knowledge gap regarding how the routine use of BCs, containing a consortium of bacteria and enzymes, applied directly within the AD system can affect the system’s performance and its by-products (biogas and biosolids). This study reviews the impact of routine bioaugmentation applications using a commercial grade BC on an AD system. An analysis of two full-scale AD systems inoculated with said BC has been completed to determine impacts on biosolids, and biogas production. This study provides significant information substantiating the claim that bioaugmentation enhances AD performance and long-term economic viability.

Energy is the dominant climate change contributor accounting for around 60% of total global gas emissions. Given the growing concerns and complexities associated with climate change, most countries worldwide have committed to delivering clean energy. One way to attain this is to invest in energy-efficient technologies such as efficient light bulb technologies. This study’s question was; what determines households’ energy efficiency light bulb adoption in Kiwatule? The main objective of this study was to investigate the behaviour and attitudes of households adopting energy-efficient light bulbs in Kiwatule. The research findings indicated financial motivation as the major determinant of efficient light bulb adoption. To facilitate this, the study suggested that the Ugandan government enacts the current energy light bulb bill and also extends efficient light bulb subsidies to all households. Keywords: Energy efficiency, efficient light bulbs, determinants, adoption, household