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The year is 1964, and while a U of T campus is constructed in Scarborough, scientists around the world  that a slew of bizarre weather changes are directly related to fossil fuel emissions. 

The campus opens and students flood into the Andrews Building, an acclaimed monolith of brutalist architecture with a connected Science Wing and Humanities Wing. Deep below three smokestacks (one decorative, the others venting steam), a huge plant of HVAC machines heat the campus by pumping steam through pipes — steam made in boilers that run on burning natural gas.

“When the building was built, there was not a lot of future proofing. For example, we have some large pieces of equipment that were encased in concrete.  When we replace them, we have to cut them out,” says Johnny Ravindran, manager, energy management and implementation with Facilities Management. 

As the campus grows during the 2000s, five new buildings are all hooked up to the plant. Across Ellesmere Road, three buildings constructed from 2011 to 2015 establish the north side of the campus, and the school’s commitment to sustainability, with each earning awards for their energy-efficient designs. Yet most of the campus’ greenhouse gas emissions still come from the bowels of the Andrews Building. 

Then, in 2016,  for sustainability-boosting renovations to lab spaces and the Andrews Building, setting the path for a behind-the-scenes transformation.

While staff are eager to use more efficient technologies — including updated boilers and chillers, and switching the original lights with LEDs that use half as much power — the campus never closes long enough for a complete overhaul. 

“If we were to replace things before the end of their lives, it’s not an as efficient use of those materials’ carbon life cycle,” says Patricia Escobar, manager of sustainability at �������ϲʿ����ӿ�. “Our plans are to invest in major greenhouse has reduction projects and balance the timing of sustainable upgrades as equipment reaches the end of life. While it's important to be aggressive with our upgrades, there is a balance to all this.”

They instead act strategically, replacing boilers, chillers, air handling units, breakers and lightbulbs one by one as they age out. As they do, they chip away at the massive task of upgrading the boiler system to run on hot water alone, eliminating the need to generate steam. A condenser is installed that captures excess heat and reuses it to warm the water. Air-handling units, responsible for circulating air, are replaced with high-tech versions that similarly run on hot water. 

In a grassy courtyard outside the Andrews Building circa 2018, 99 holes are dug 600 feet into the ground, creating an elaborate system of tubes; , and during the summer, excess heat is funnelled into the tubes and stored until winter, then pumped back throughout the campus. 

“The engineers had to find a creative way to bring the large pipes from the green field all the way to the sixth floor of the Science Wing, as they couldn’t just run them on the exterior of the building,” says Hoorik Yeghiazarian, manager of facilities asset and utility planning. “The architectural significance of the Andrew's Building is important. From the university’s perspective, we want to keep the building as is, to preserve the architectural expression as much as possible.”

In 2023, an air tightness test and thermal imaging scan is conducted in the Humanities Wing to find where conditioned air might be escaping, as part of a larger study to find what it’ll take to get the campus’ oldest building to net zero emissions. By now, 50 per cent of heating from the plant is done through hot water alone. That same year, renovations to the biology labs in the Science Wing finish, keeping energy demands as low as possible even as an entire floor is converted into a vivarium and other intensive research spaces are brought in, including grow chambers and freezer farms.

Meanwhile, on the campus’ north side, a new student residence opens, meeting the voluntary standard in energy efficiency. Upcoming developments — the Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health (SAMIH), Indigenous House, the Sam Ibrahim Centre and a massive  — are all designed around the latest in sustainable architecture, with solar panels, green roofs, geo-exchanges and a litany of other clean technologies. 

Sixty years on, the school’s latest energy conservation plan, aligned with U of T’s , aims to get its annual greenhouse gas emissions almost 40 per cent below what they were in 1990, and includes replacing more chillers, heat pumps and air-handling units and major greenhouse gas reduction projects. The goal is in sight and in reach: a net zero campus by 2050. 

“All the pieces are coming together,” says Escobar.