The University of California has been praised for its work toward more sustainable operating practices, having implemented programs and policies aiming to minimize the university’s contribution to the deterioration of the global environment.
The efforts the university has devoted to improving its sustainability practices have earned prestigious awards from national environmental protection institutions including the Sierra Club, and have established the university’s position as one of the most environmentally friendly campuses in the country, according to a statement released by the UC Office of the President.
UC officials have made a point of trying to incorporate sustainable practices at fundamental levels.
“Most of the (university’s) sustainability program is putting a sustainability overlay over the work we already do,” said Matt Sinclair, a sustainability expert in the UC Office of the President. “This is supposed to become part of standard business. It’s not supposed to be anything of an add-on.”
Many of the policies and programs that the university has established in recent years pertain to construction projects that meet the specifications of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System (LEED) established by the U.S. Green Building Council. All new UC campus construction projects must reach at least silver certification, the least strenuous tier of qualification.
UC Merced’s sustainability efforts are especially unique within the UC system, because that campus was founded relatively recently and still has ongoing construction.
“We’ve put some things in place to either save energy or reduce our peak demand,” said John Elliott, UC Merced campus energy manager. “We made a commitment that all buildings would be LEED certified. At the time of the campus’ founding the chancellor said that all buildings would be LEED silver certified. Since then UC has adopted a policy that all buildings will be LEED certified.”
A great deal of the construction work, though based on ambitious and progressively environmentally friendly goals, was hindered by the limited availability of funds for construction when the project began several years ago said Henry Forman, a professor of biochemistry and chemistry at UC Merced.
“I think that UC Merced has done as good a job at building sustainable and environmentally friendly buildings that they probably could afford,” he said. “Steel costs shot up through the roof, and they had to cut back and do value engineering. But it’s no particular individual’s fault.”
Forman said the cutbacks that were forced on the Merced construction projects are noticeable on campus, though engineers and architects did a good job planning revolutionary water-heated and water-cooled facilities on campus.
He said that UC Merced’s campus lacks certain technologies and building features that might not have been absent if there had been more funding for the construction.
“You would expect that a university that has become one of the world’s leading authorities on solar energy would have solar panels everywhere. That would have been sort of a no-brainer,” Forman said.
Space, Forman said, is also a commodity in high demand on the UC Merced, as the campus’s development and continuing construction efforts have been limited by the presence of endangered wildlife on much of the planned construction sites.
Forman suggested that a more realistic plan would have been to construct taller buildings, much like what he said UCLA has done with a limited amount of real estate to build on.
“If you’re going to do things that are environmentally friendly, in an environment like this where you don’t have any earthquakes, you build up instead of out,” he said. “The tallest building on campus is the library and it is four floors.”
Sustainability efforts within the greater UC system include more than the construction of efficient buildings.
The university has established policies on the limitation of emissions and on the efficient use of energy designed to minimize the university’s impact on the environment.
“(The UC policy) says you have to reduce emissions over time, and you need to become climate neutral as soon as you can while maintaining the overall mission of the university,” Elliott said. “UC is committed to being climate neutral. That is potentially huge.”
Climate neutrality is the maintenance of practices that do not contribute to global warming.
As of press time, the UCLA Institute of the Environment was unavailable to comment on UCLA’s sustainability practices.
A great deal of work on the part of the university has been devoted to the development of efficient energy use policies and practices.
The university has partnered with the Public Utilities Commission and has made grant arrangements that, so long as UC adheres to sustainable energy use practices, reduce the large utility bills that the university must pay each year, Sinclair said.
Since the partnership began in 2004, the UC and California State University have received a total of $6 million from the commission.
The initial $6 million, which was received over 2004 and 2005 came directly from commission grants that required no financial contribution on the part of the university, and the $10 million received so far over the 2006-2008 period has been a matched-funding program.
The university is expecting to face significant budget cuts in at least the coming year, which could limit the UC’s ability to match funding on these programs, Sinclair said.
“I don’t think anyone knows what the budget cuts will look like, but given the magnitude, I can only imagine that it will affect everything,” he said.
The sustainability projects have yielded a $5 million return so far, which Sinclair said is removed from the existing annual bill that the UCs must pay for utilities, according to the UC Office of the President press release.
“In many cases we may actually save money by restricting the amounts of gasoline and electricity that we use,” said Sheldon Kamieniecki, a professor and dean of social sciences at UC Santa Cruz.
“We’re talking about behavior modification,” he said. “When we make wise choices on the environment we oftentimes come out ahead and many businesses are realizing this.”