SUSTAINABILITY AND THE SCIENCE OF WELL-BEING
“WELL fosters a holistic formula for better health and wellness outcomes, leading to improvements in things like … productivity, engagement and retention”
- Randy Fiser – CEO, American Society of Interior Designers
Download the Call for Abstracts form
CONFERENCE OBJECTIVES
Inspired by Well-being – Focused on Sustainability. The 2019 SLCan Sustainable Labs Conference is a Canadian national forum focused on strengthening the sustainable laboratory community and sharing knowledge, promoting innovation and best practices, as well as providing a platform for strategic thinking and discussion on the challenges and opportunities related to these assets. Following on the success of last year’s conference, the 2019 conference will explore the experiences of the people inhabiting the spaces we design. In a continuation of the concept of the “Human Element” we pursued in Winnipeg, the 2019 conference will look at the laboratory, at sustainability and the experience of the occupants, but this time through the lenses of “WELL” and of “Well-being”. In our pursuit to provide conference participants with the best content for professional development and learning in the field of sustainable laboratories, we will endeavor to channel the concepts of Well-being towards creating:
1. CONDITIONS where Science and Sustainability come together in an energy efficient environment of Wellbeing – to create People First Places.
AND
2. SPACES that are a positive influence – sustainable environments that enhance the experience, enjoyment and productivity of the inhabitants while enabling the science that happens within.
Why WELL?
WELL: A building standard that encourages innovation, with a focus on the health and wellness of the people in buildings. It is a performance-based system for measuring, certifying and monitoring features of the built environment that impact human health and well-being, through elements such as air, water, light and comfort. WELL links best practices in design and construction with evidence-based medical and scientific research – harnessing the built environment as a vehicle to support health and wellbeing
Why Well-being?
Well-being: The state of being comfortable, healthy and happy……….Wiki 2019
The conditions of spatial wellbeing are measured through the success of the programs the spaces support. Spaces that are first and foremost great places for Science, with light, views, and supportive environments that create the conditions that allow the Users to be at their best.
- A place that will enhance the User experience by putting people first
- An environment that is uncompromising in support of research & learning
- Creating special places for great science to happen through the engagement of the Users of that place
Sustainable Labs Canada (SLCan) and Conference Organizing Committee invite you to submit presentations on your involvement, your expertise and the current and future challenges you anticipate with respect to the development and management of laboratories within the following Streams:
1. Design & Engineering – For the People and of the People – Case Studies and Sharing Applications
2. Operations and Facilities Management – Better Research Environments
3. Products, Technology and Energy Management
Abstracts are encouraged in, but not limited to the following topics:
• Recruitment and Retention – SPACES that “sell”
• The “Social” in the Science – Socially Sustainable Approaches
• The quality of “Place” – the relationship to the quality of the experience and the quality of the scientific outputs
• WELL as a fundamental design tool
• The Built Environment – A vehicle to support health and well-being
• Investing in the most valuable resources – the people
• Trends in WELL based lab design
• Energy Modeling
• Design Challenges
• Design & Operations – How they impact and influence Human Behavior
• NET ZERO solutions and carbon neutrality
• Climate and Resiliency – how will we adapt
• Benchmarking Well-being
• User Engagement in Design and Monitoring
• Measuring, Certifying and Monitoring features of the built environment
• To “Serve and Protect” – Systems & Features that support Well-being
• Design & Operations – How they impact and influence Human Behavior
• Innovative systems that support Health & Wellness
• Commissioning strategies and Well-being
• Energy Management
• Smart Building Technologies
• Products that “sell WELL”
• Pushing towards Net Zero in labs
• Labs and the 2030 Challenge
• Performance Improvements
ABSTRACTS
Abstracts should be submitted for consideration as oral presentations. Abstracts should be no more than 500 words and must include biographies for all presenters. The abstracts may be submitted in English or French and must be submitted to info@slcan.ca.
Guidelines for submitting abstracts:
All abstracts must be submitted using the abstract submission form. Abstracts will be selected for inclusion in the preliminary program on the basis of a peer review by a panel of experts. Oral presentations are to be 45 minutes in length.
Special attention will be given to abstracts that:
• Focus on new developments and technologies;
• Evaluate a completed project's performance by presenting documented results over a period of time; and,
• Are presented by the facility owner.
OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
Initial abstracts may be submitted in English or French. All final abstracts and presentations crediting federal government employee authors must be submitted in English and French. Any organizations with translation capabilities are encouraged to provide their abstracts and presentations in English and French. The translation may follow the revised final version.
FINAL PRESENTATIONS
PowerPoint (PPT) presentations must be submitted for review by subject experts. Authors of accepted presentations must revise their PPT presentations as required by the reviewers. Revised PPTs are to be submitted by e-mail. The presentations will be made available on the SLCan website (www.slcan.ca) following the Conference in the members only section.
TIPS FOR PRESENTERS (selected abstracts)
• Communicate sustainability in a way that makes it relevant and useful to the particular audience you are speaking to.
• Provide a balance between negative and positive with a focus on the positive.
• Provide a balance between theory, examples and stories, with a focus on the stories.
• Empower the audience with information that will enable them to move forward to do something rather than get frustrated.
• Communicate all sides of the story as effectively as possible.
• Base the presentation on actual experience (own or that of others), not on speculation and wishful thinking.
• Address challenges and trade-offs around sustainability.
• Be engaging and interactive, breaking conventions in presentation style as sustainability requires breaking conventions in the “real world”.
Abstract Deadline – May 17, 2019
Author Notification – June 07, 2019
Revised/Translated Abstract – Due June 21, 2019
Draft PPT Due October 11, 2019
Final (Revised) PPT Due October 25, 2019
For more information please visit the 2019 SLCan Sustainable Labs Conference website:
https://slcan.ca/professionaldevelopment/2019-slcan-sustainable-laboratory-conference/