The Associated Students UCLA will be testing the waters of
sustainability after the approval of a new greening program
Friday.
At the monthly board of directors meeting, the board approved
the LuValle Commons Pilot Greening Program, which will test the
success of sustainable business practices at LuValle Commons.
In order to measure the success of the sustainability project,
ASUCLA board members plan to first implement as many sustainable
practices as possible, and then look at the financial cost, said
Bob Williams, the executive director for ASUCLA.
ASUCLA was presented with the idea of implementing sustainable
practices at LuValle Commons when representatives from Ecology,
Economy, Equity and the UCLA Campus Sustainability Committee met
with the ASUCLA Services Committee in a meeting Feb. 10.
Since then, the ASUCLA Services Committee has met with various
sustainability consultants, including Genevieve Bertone, executive
director for Sustainable Works, an organization that promotes
environmental education.
She outlined a plan to help LuValle Commons conserve energy and
preserve resources, which she estimated would amount to a total
cost of $22,000, not including the expense of infrastructure
changes.
As part of the LuValle Commons Pilot Greening Program, ASUCLA
drafted a policy on sustainability, which states ASUCLA’s
participation in “education, business operations and
community involvement that promote long-term commitment to
ecological health, economic viability and community
welfare.”
The board viewed LuValle Commons as the perfect “guinea
pig” to test out the sustainability program, as it
incorporates elements of many different services, including dining
options and a UCLA store.
This all-inclusive quality would make it easier for the board to
assess the success of the program on a broader level, as LuValle
represents a wide range of campus services.
“It’s better to figure out the sustainability issues
all at once, so LuValle is a test case,” Williams said.
“It’s one operation to try a lot of
operations.”
In addition to the LuValle Commons Pilot Greening Program, the
board approved numerous other action items, including the motion to
install two sets of bicycle racks at the entrance to Ackerman
Union.
Sam Corbett, the manager of transportation planning and policy
for the UCLA Transportation Services, first proposed this idea at
the Services Committee meeting on April 14 in order to respond to
the high demand for bicycle racks by Ackerman.
Currently, bicycles are often chained on the railings or parked
on the steps to the A-level of Ackerman, said Gustavo DeHaro, the
chair of the ASUCLA Services Committee and an undergraduate
representative on the board of directors.
The board felt this problem would be best solved with the
installation of bicycle racks at the northern and southern end of
the west entrance to the UCLA Store.
The board also approved several budgets for the 2006-2007 fiscal
year, including those for both the Graduate Students Association,
Undergraduate Students Association and Student Media.
Though Student Media faced a $169,000 net loss in the 2005-2006
school year, the Communications Board budgeted a $70,000 deficit
for next year, which is less than half that of the current
year.
Toward the end of the meeting, the board exchanged farewell
remarks for Werner Hirsch, a professor emeritus of economics and
the faculty representative on the board of directors, who plans to
leave the board at the end of the school year.