Sustainable UPEI Initiative Wins Sierra Club Awards
The Sierra Club of Canada, one of Canada’s largest and most reputable environmental organizations, has awarded two of its five annual prizes to a student and a professor at the University of Prince Edward Island, in part for their work on the “Sustainable UPEI” project.
Joshua S. Darrach, a fourth-year student majoring in philosophy with a minor in environmental studies, received the Sierra Youth Coalition of Canada (SYC) Inspiration Award. The award marks an outstanding contribution by a Sierra Club of Canada member under 25 years old and comes with a $2,000 scholarship to further the recipient’s education.
Darrach received the award for his work with “Sustainable UPEI”; his advocacy in SYC Sustainable Campuses; and for joining and co-organizing the Canadian Youth Delegation to the UN Climate Change meetings in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2006, and Bali, Indonesia, in 2007.
“UPEI Environmental Studies and Sustainability has been a life-changing experience,” says Darrach. “Many students like myself are now active in provincial, national, and international sustainability work. It has been a real incubator for youth leaders committed to positive, constructive change toward a sustainable world and future.”
Dr. Almut Beringer, a professor of environmental studies and sustainability at UPEI, received the Sierra Club of Canada Conservation Chapter Award for her contributions to the “Sustainable UPEI” initiative. Only one such prize is awarded across the five regional chapters of the Sierra Club.
