Volume 25 · Number 4 · Summer 2008
Green All Over
Efforts to reduce UC Davis’ carbon footprint and make the campus more sustainable include recycling. (Karin Higgins/UC Davis)
UC Davis is committed to becoming as environmentally responsible as it possibly can — including reducing its waste to zero by 2020.
One of the most sweeping experiments ever launched at UC Davis enlists the university’s own backyard, front yard and just about everything standing on its 5,300 acres as both laboratory and research subject. Mustering the full weight of its environmental expertise, institutional know-how and student enthusiasm, the campus is working to transform itself into a model of sustainability.
The undertaking, to be sure, is huge: going far beyond recycling paper, bottles and cans to become “climate neutral” by 2020. But so, too, are the stakes, say administrators, faculty, staff members and student activists committed to helping save the warming planet — starting first at the place where they work, learn and live.
On a campus long known for bicycles, a student-run bus system, the Whole Earth Festival and environmental studies, this commitment to becoming even more green has already produced visible results. Among them: new buildings designed to meet the highest standards of Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design, or LEED, certification, composting of nearly all food waste in student dining commons, a choice of locally grown food at campus eateries and university-catered events, installation of UC Davis-designed self-dimming bathroom lights in some residence halls and the opening of the first-ever “zero-waste” college stadium.
Less obvious, but also critical to sustainability goals, are the installation of utility meters on a number of older buildings, a switch to organic fertilizer on campus grounds, a computerized landscape irrigation system and replacement of old refrigerators and freezers with more energy-efficient models.
Such efforts are only first steps.
Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef declared the campus’ sustainability goals during his convocation address at the start of this academic year. “We at UC Davis are committed to becoming a zero-waste campus by the year 2020,” he said. “We’re committed to purchasing 20 percent of our electricity from renewable resources by 2010. And we’re committed to sharply reducing the campus’s carbon emissions as quickly as we can.
“If any campus can do it, we can,” Vanderhoef said. “We have a long tradition of environmental research and leadership and sustainable practices.”
But, he cautioned, it won’t be easy — and will require the effort of the entire campus community. To that end, UC Davis in 2005 created a sustainability advisory committee made up of a cross-section of administrators, faculty, staff and students. And this May, the campus created an environmental stewardship office, headed by longtime campus environmental planner Sid England, to coordinate its sustainability initiative.
Green Things at UC Davis
All across campus — from buildings to lighting to trasportation to food service — the campus is going green.
Similar efforts are occurring across the UC system. In March 2007, UC President Richard Dynes signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment — pledging the 10 UC campuses to achieve “climate neutrality” as soon as possible. He has asked each campus to develop action plans by next December for reducing their greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels and for diverting all their trash from landfills by 2020.
UC Davis, more than most campuses, is like a city unto itself — presenting both unique challenges and opportunities. It is one of the few universities in the nation to operate its own airport, drinking water system, waste- water treatment facility and landfill. While students and employees at other campuses might ride a city bus, Unitrans, operated by the Associated Students, provides public transportation — most of it running on clean energy — for the entire Davis community.
UC Davis has 1,124 buildings — most of them on its Davis campus, with others at the UC Davis Health System in Sacramento as well as at research centers in Tulare County, Napa Valley, Lake Tahoe and Bodega Bay. In addition, it owns about 80 emergency generators, 716 cars and trucks and 52 buses.
New buildings, under policy adopted by UC regents five years ago, must be designed to meet green standards. However, many existing buildings are more than 40 years old with inefficient cooling, heating and lighting systems, said Stan Nosek, who oversees UC Davis business operations as vice chancellor for administration.
Adding to energy use, and costs, is research — with needs for precise temperature and lighting controls, subzero freezers and continuous operation of fume hoods that, in addition to protecting researchers’ health, siphon out buildings’ heated or cooled air.
As a baseline for measuring its progress, UC Davis has conducted inventories for its greenhouse gas emissions in 2005 and 2006. UC Davis was the third of the 10 UC campuses to submit its data to the voluntary California Climate Action Registry.
That inventory found that natural gas and electricity consumption is the biggest contributor to the carbon footprint of the Davis and Sacramento campuses — the equivalent of nearly 200,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, about the same amount that is produced by driving 54,000 cars for a year.
The yearly utility bill for all UC Davis facilities — including off-campus research centers, in addition to Davis and Sacramento buildings — totals about $48.6 million. State funding covers $37.5 million, requiring the campus, with every increase in utility rates or energy use, to dig deeper into funds that would otherwise go toward its teaching, research and public service missions.
UC Davis buys its electricity from the Western Area Power Administration, which delivers electricity from 56 federal hydropower plants and one coal-fired plant, as well as brokering energy from other sources. Depending on annual precipitation, 10–33 percent of UC Davis’ electricity comes from hydropower, said David Phillips, director of campus facilities’ operations and maintenance.
Recent improvements to the mechanical systems that pump chilled water to cool UC Davis buildings are expected to save $1.5 million a year in energy costs and reduce the carbon footprint by 4 percent.
To encourage greater energy savings, the campus for the past five years has been installing utility meters — beginning with new facilities and buildings under renovation — to monitor use of gas, electricity, chilled water and drinking water.
New student movement
They lobby rather than demonstrate, write detailed proposals instead of lists of demands, and mobilize by teleconference calls, e-mail listserves, social networking Web sites, workshops and seminars, in addition to attending teach-ins.
Activists with the California Student Sustainability Coalition, including a number of UC Davis students, have been a polite but persistent force in nudging UC and other campuses to become more climate friendly.
When it comes to shutting down its landfill, UC Davis is already halfway to its goal — diverting 56 percent of its trash from the Davis campus through recycling and composting, said Lin King ’92, manager of the campus R4 Recyling Program.
All “green waste” — manure from the campus livestock barns and landscaping trimmings — is now composted or mulched and returned to the landscape, King said. Nearly all food waste from residence hall dining commons is also composted.
Reaching the next mileposts — diverting 75 percent of solid waste by 2012 and 100 percent by 2020 — will be tougher. King said the campus will need to come up with new solutions for disposing of old furniture and other bulky items that can’t be reused or sold, as well as new strategies for acquiring new supplies. “It’s buying things that aren’t throw-away,” he said.
That will mean a change of thinking for managers making purchasing decisions — and often added costs for their departments.
King has been meeting with facilities and department managers to encourage them, when planning campus events, to pay 25 cents extra per person for dishes and utensils that are either washable or can be composted.
Nosek said that meeting sustainability goals for neutral impact on the climate will require technological breakthroughs. “We can’t even figure out how we can meet the expectations with existing technology,” he said. “It’s daunting, what we have in front of us, but it’s also the right thing to do.”
To tap the ingenuity of students, faculty and staff, UC Davis’ sustainability advisory committee for the past two years has offered competitive grants ranging from $295 to $4,000 for campus sustainability projects, such as an edible landscaping demonstration garden using biointensive techniques, solar power for a bike repair co-op, a pedal-powered laptop-computer-charging table, worm-composting bins and a study of what kinds of foods at the dining commons go into the compost bins. “Those things aren’t necessarily going to be changing the world, but they create energy, excitement, enthusiasm,” Nosek said. “Once people start getting the idea of what we want to do, they want to make a contribution.”
Developing climate-change solutions fulfills UC Davis’ mission for teaching, research and public service, he said. “Being a land-grant university, we have an extra obligation to be concerned about the environment, about our surroundings. If we aren’t leading the sustainability effort, trying to maintain this earth and preserve it for future generations, who should be? . . . We have resources, we have intellectual capital, that can help us do better.”
Kathleen Holder is associate editor of UC Davis Magazine.