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Holistic Vision
Peter (CIV7T7) and Barbara Halsall have given $100 000 toward a bold new curriculum at Camp. An activist businessman and practical idealist – Peter Halsall proves that this is less of a contradiction than you may think.
The Halsall name has long been associated with “green” engineering. Even as Halsall Associates made a name for themselves in structural, restoration, and consultancy work, they integrated sustainable design practices into every project undertaken.
Pioneers of green building consulting, they even helped develop the Canada Green Building Council LEED-EB Standards in place today.
But their commitment to environmental protection goes far beyond the boardroom. For Peter and Barbara Halsall, it’s personal.
The couple have recently finalized a generous $100 000 gift to the Department of Civil Engineering, a gift specifically targetted toward the development of a value-added sustainability-themed curriculum that will be further integrated into the Camp experience.
“The basic idea is to have an expert available,” Peter says of the plan, which will bring in a specialist to teach students to look at cycles that exist in nature and learn to emulate this in their work. “Not many schools have an opportunity to do this.”
The resident naturalist would intensively engage with the students at Camp as they carry out their work, but would also be asked to work with the entire Department back in Toronto.
The Halsall donation will provide funding for this program starting this summer and will continue for the next 5 years, dovetailing seamlessly into the ongoing redevelopment of the physical property at the site.
The Halsalls are passionate about sustainability and want to help develop the future of the civil engineering industry. “We need to understand how nature operates to be able to engineer for humans,” Peter reflects. “Along with the technical specifics of engineering, we need to study natural laws.”
Too often, of course, we’re tempted to simply draw a straight line through natural systems in solving a problem. Halsall suggests that this simply won’t do in the long run.
So where did the inspiration come from?
“When I became President,” Peter says of his firm, “I asked myself why not build a company that our children would be proud to aspire to work at.”
Environmentalism all too often lends itself to passionate but impractical moral idealism. But Peter is very practical in laying out his philosophy.
“In the late 90s it became apparent that we were exceeding the carrying capacity of the Earth,” he says. “We wanted to be able to say that what we were working for was for the good of humanity.”
“Our clients,” he adds, “wanted to be inspired.”
Peter might best be described as an activist. A conversation on sustainability is peppered with phrases like “drive for change,” and an unmasked repugnance for those forces which would have us accept the status-quo.
But in a business like engineering, which is by nature bound by the requirements of public regulation, inertia is all too often the name of the game.
“Responsible change is needed,” Peter insists. “We need decisionmakers who will do more than just the minimum they can get away with.”
And it is that vision of the future that brings us squarely back to today’s educational mission.
“Too often we work to solve a problem that somebody else has defined,” Peter says, pointing to issues around the ozone layer, acid rain, and the last energy crisis as examples of problems caused largely by the decisions of previous generations. “Let’s look at the big picture now, and work to avoid creating the next generation’s major problems down the road.”
As practical activists, the Halsalls admit that change won’t happen overnight. For them, it’s all about building momentum.
“This whole thing is a journey,” they say, “and it is about inspiring others to come together and join each other on the journey. For us it is not a bandwagon – it is an approach to living life – to doing business.”
Placing students in the way of passionate thought leaders will help integrate sustainability into every corner of our student experience. Already a cornerstone of the undergraduate program, this program will add value to camp far beyond anything currently offered in Canadian engineering programs.
