UC is spearheading the California Million Light Bulb Challenge, which is a statewide effort to procure high-quality, energy efficient light sources. The Challenge aims to reduce our carbon footprint by replacing incandescent and CFL light bulbs with high performance LED options educational materials and competitive pricing. The program will benefit campus buildings and provide a new employee-buy program available to all students, staff, faculty, and alumni of the California Million Light Bulb collaborators.
Documents & Media at UCSF have switched to TreeZero, a tree-free paper made from sugar cane, providing the UCSF community a carbon neutral paper option at an affordable price. The paper is made from fiber leftover from sugar production that would have otherwise been sent to landfill, and can be recycled after use along with other paper. UCSF's purchase of TreeZero will save 1,920 trees each year, and offset 80 tons of associated carbon emissions.
UC Davis Reiss Fellow Kristin Hogue has designed a discussion-based seminar in the English Department that seeks to answer how the humanities shape the way people view scientific issues like climate change and biodiversity loss. Through her course, Hogue has empowered students to live more sustainably and use their skills in the humanities to create change in their communities. This seminar has helped UCD with its broader goals of fully engaging students, faculty, and staff to think about environmental issues beyond science and technology, but rather as a question of how we should live on Earth.
This is the second time UCSD has earned a STARS Gold rating, and joins UCI in getting an updated rating this year. UCSD's gold rating can be attributed to its sustainability achievements in academics, engagement, operations, planning & administration, and innovation & leadership.
While a student at UC Berkeley, Mackenzie Feldman took a deep interest in the herbicides that were being sprayed on many of the grasses on campus. Working with environmental leaders both on and off campus, Feldman has helped secure a grant to eliminate herbicides from Memorial Glade and Faculty Glade and to train groundskeeping staff on methods to maintain the glades without herbicides.
