Sustainability requires a team effort, says UofS research group

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It takes all kinds of things to make a world – and to make the world more sustainable and able to respond and adapt to climate change.

Dr. Maureen Reed and her students put that guiding principle into practice every day.

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Reed is a professor in the School of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Saskatchewan, where she directs the PROGRESS (Practices of governance, resilience, environmental and social sustainability) lab. She holds the UNESCO chair in biocultural diversity, sustainability, reconciliation and renewal.

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Under her mentorship, students from diverse disciplines and backgrounds have come together to address critical questions about environmental challenges.

“In this lab group, we have a communications specialist, we have geographers, we have biologists and environmental scientists (and) someone with legal training,” Reed said. “We bring all hands on deck.”

This collaborative approach also shapes the way Reed and her students work with local communities and individuals who are experiencing the impacts of climate change in their own specific ways and have their own priorities about which parts of the land, water and environment matter most must be protected and protected. well kept.

“Sustainability is not just about protecting the environment,” Reed noted. “We have to get people involved who want and can make those decisions.”

In her research, PhD candidate Michaela Sidloski focused on how different groups within a community – for example men and women, or elderly and young people – experience environmental risks and changes differently.

Understanding these social factors can lead to more useful, locally focused strategies, rather than trying to address environmental problems with overly broad strokes, she said.

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“A one-size-fits-all process…doesn’t work. To assume homogeneity, or to take a grand idea about how people are affected and what solutions should look like and apply it across the board, doesn’t work. And if we try to apply these higher-level concepts at the local level without contextualizing them, we run into problems.”

Another of Reed’s students, Marie Rogel, focuses on how and what an international community of sustainability scholars is learning now – because studying sustainability education can improve the way people teach these topics in the future.

“We need to understand what and how current sustainability students are learning and whether they are gaining the skills and knowledge they need to meet ever-changing sustainability challenges,” Rogel said.

“I’m a science communications professional and I’ve always been interested in working with communities to figure out what information they need and deliver that information in a way that different types of audiences can easily reach and understand.”

With so many different approaches to the environment, conservation and sustainability gathered in one lab, Reed said she is “so proud” of the unique collaborations her students have forged over the years.

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“Because of their enthusiasm, dedication and ability to work with each other, and the relationships they build with communities, it’s a very rich environment,” she said.

According to Reed, these collaborations – and the realization that everyone has a role to play in the future of environmental sustainability – provide an essential foundation for the work that needs to happen in Saskatchewan and around the world.

“We need to start building some very constructive and positive types of conversations, rather than doom and gloom – because doom and gloom is not very motivating,” she said.

“But what is motivating for me is building relationships that can help drive better decisions and better practices in the future.”

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