A Tenth Year Anniversary Retrospect: The Effect of the Halifax Declaration onCanadian Signatory Universities

Abstract

In 1991, sixteen Canadian universities endorsed the Halifax Declaration (HD) at the Conference on University Action for Sustainable Development in Halifax, Nova Scotia.This Declaration recognized the leadership role universities could play in a world at serious risk of irreparable environmental damage and asserted that universities must re-think and reconstruct their environmental policies and practices in order to contribute to environmental sustainability on local, national, and international levels. This studydiscusses the degree to which initiatives outlined in the Halifax Declaration Action Plan were implemented at signatory universities, identifies emerging patterns in theimplementation of Declaration initiatives, and examines the extent to which the Declaration encouraged universities to re-think and reconstruct their environmentalpolicies and practices.