From left, UNBC student Torrye Mackenzie, UNBC Food Services Director Willie Lum, UNBC Sustainability Manager Kyrke Gaudreau, UNBC President Daniel Weeks, UNBC Business Development Officer Nicole Neufeld, and UNBC student Matthew Ewen celebrate UNBC’s Fair Trade Campus designation – photo 250News

Prince George, B.C. – UNBC is celebrating Green Day today, and no music fans, it didn’t include a special appearance by the world famous punk band.

Rather a new sustainability measure was announced – Canada’s “Green University” has been designated a fair trade campus.

“It means that we provide fair trade products on campus. We have fair trade coffee options, fair trade tea options, and fair trade chocolate options at all our locations,” said Torrye Mackenzie, one of the students who helped spearhead the initiative.

Fellow student Matthew Ewen said the idea quickly grew after an international Fair Trade conference he and Torrye attended in Montreal last September.

“We really pushed hard and built a committee of different stakeholders that were interested in getting a fair trade designation with us for UNBC and targeting a lot of the businesses on campus.”

Ultimately both would like to expand the range of fair trade products sold at the school to include textiles and items sold in the book store.

So why is the fair trade designation so important?

“Before fair trade, workers were getting paid two cents per shipment of coffee sent out. Meanwhile you buy a cup of coffee for $1.50. So now they’re able to make a fair wage from their coffee. It gives them the opportunity to be sustainable in themselves and make a proper living, said Torrye.”

UNBC president Daniel Weekes called today’s announcement “special” and gave all the credit to the students.

“It helps focus both our business operations but also the way we teach, the way we do our research. It’s incredibly important and I’m most proud it’s been driven by our students.”