Founded in 2013, SLCan's mission is to provide a national forum for the exchange of knowledge and information on advancements in technology that supports the sustainability of Canadian laboratories.
Welcome to SLCan
Thank you for being a part of SLCan and for supporting the SLCan program. Here is a brief update on SLCan activities for 2015
National Workshops
As you are probably aware SLCan has held two national lab workshops since our inception in 2012. With a lineup of excellent presenters, the workshops were deemed to be extremely beneficial by all who attended. Due to temporary financial limitations, we are unable to host a national workshop this year, however, we are delighted to offer a series of exceptional webinar presentations while we plan for our 2016 workshop.
However if you weren’t able to attend all of the previous sessions, we are pleased to advise that the sessions will be posted on our recently upgraded website and members will be able to access the presentations for free in the members’ section of the site at https://slcan.ca/.
Monthly Webinar Series
Drawing upon a strong core of volunteers and supporters, SLCan initiated a monthly webinar series in March and the sessions are being very well received. We encourage you to check out the program on our website and participate if you are able. If there is a particular subject that you are interested in seeing presented, please let us know.
Annual General Meeting
Our Annual General Meeting (by Webinar) will be held in June. There are two Public Member Board positions vacant, which will be up for election. If you are interested or know of anyone who may be interested in joining the board, please let us know.
Starting a local Chapter of SLCan
A Chapter Charter Kit will soon be available for region interested in starting a local chapter of SLCan. If you or someone you know would like to initiate a chapter, please let us know.
Membership and Sponsors
As with any new organization like SLCan we are always looking for volunteers, new members and corporate sponsors. If you would be willing participate or provide sponsorship, please let us know. We’d love to have you join us.
Thanks for your support and on behalf of the board, we hope you will participate in our webinar series and encourage your colleagues to join as well.
James Dykes, Architect, AAA, FRAIC
Founding President of SLCan
We often think of sustainability in laboratories as being limited to energy reduction and while that is incredibly important and I am the first to support this work, we need to think far more broadly about sustainable activities and our impact on the world we live in.
As an example, we need to stop thinking about materials that we are finished working with in the labs as ‘waste’ materials and start thinking about these items as products to be used as a resource in yet another cycle. Material that we put into compost bins is not waste! It is organic material that can be used to sustain new growth. If we think of organic materials as waste, then we think of it as garbage and thus it has no value to society. If it has no value to use, then we treat that stream of material inappropriately. Let’s stop calling the materials we are finished with ‘waste’ unless it truly is of no further value to our society.
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