Advancing and incorporating the principles of sustainability across York's campuses
SUSTAINABILITY IS EVERYTHING
At York, sustainability is more than a promise to control our waste and energy. It is the lens through which we see everything we do. It is in the character that we all have, in the space we all occupy, and in the culture we create for everyone—on campus and in our communities. Most importantly, it is the challenge that we must all agree to tackle together.
We are challenging ourselves, to work towards reaching the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out by the United Nations. And we’re inviting everyone—students, faculty, and community members—to join us.
PEOPLE
York University is working to foster a culture of collaborative behaviour that harmonizes the efforts of the York community to pursue widely understood sustainability objectives. York’s holistic understanding of sustainability includes human well-being and social dimensions, and recognizes the social, economic and environmental roles of York University in and with our local neighbourhoods.
KNOWLEDGE
York University’s mission is the pursuit, preservation, and dissemination of knowledge through excellence in research and teaching. Our strengths in sustainability research inform our teaching. York aspires to develop pathways for all students to access sustainability curriculum, especially experiential education opportunities in sustainability.
PLACES
Campus sustainability consist of development, operations and maintenance on our campuses. New development is guided by green building targets, and York is building on successes with waste diversion, sustainable procurement, transportation, carbon reductions and operations.
What York is Doing
York University has long been recognized as an international leader in sustainability-relevant research, teaching, partnerships, and campus practices. By challenging ourselves to deepen this work over the next five years, and to track and report on our contributions, we reaffirm our longstanding York values of social justice, equity, sustainability, and excellence in all that we do.

Creating a sustainable future starts now and it starts with us.
Are you up for the challenge?

What You Can Do
Get involved!
Getting involved in York’s sustainability initiatives is a great decision—for yourself, your community, and our future. The United Nations has established 17 Sustainability Development Goals and challenged the world to meet them. York University is already recognized as an international leader in SDG-relevant research, teaching, partnerships, and campus practices.
Learn more about the UN’s 17 SDGs and how York is rising to the challenge.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Watch this video to understand York's Land Acknowledgement.
York University acknowledges its presence on the traditional territory of many Indigenous Nations. The area known as Tkaronto has been care taken by the Anishinabek Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Huron-Wendat, and the Métis. It is now home to many Indigenous Peoples. We acknowledge the current treaty holders, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. This territory is subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement to peaceably share and care for the Great Lakes region.
We also understand that Indigenous peoples around the world have important knowledge about how to live sustainably:
Sophisticated knowledge of the natural world is not confined to science. Human societies all across the globe have developed rich sets of experiences and explanations relating to the environments they live in. These ‘other knowledge systems’ are today often referred to as traditional ecological knowledge or Indigenous or local knowledge. They encompass the sophisticated arrays of information, understandings and interpretations that guide human societies around the globe in their innumerable interactions with the natural milieu.