Student Projects

Each year Boalt's Environmental Law Society partners with other organizations on campus to host an environmental justice symposium. The symposia bring together students, faculty, community members, lawyers, policy-makers, and activists to learn about one another's work, strengthen existing relationships and re-energize for future action.

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PROPOSED PROJECT: Transportation and Parking Services has the dual charter of providing alternative transportation and ensuring adequate parking for faculty, staff and students. These opposing priorities have become significant and stable barriers to any alternative transportation program. Developing new policies to reduce single occupancy vehicle commuters, and consequently emissions, would be a political debate for this campus. Yet the benefits to discouraging single drivers is significant, ranging from extensive costs savings related to parking infrastructure, to reduced traffic congestion in the local community, to a safer, more pedestrian friendly campus. The following strategies can help. - Alternate funding sources for Parking – The University could partly decouple debt-financing on parking structures from permit sales. If alternative funding sources can be made available, or if more uncertainty can be accepted in permit sales, then there will be greatly improved flexibility in the transportation manager’s ability to alter the incentive structure for drivers to find alternatives. - No New Net Parking Spaces – Successfully implemented on the UCLA campus, capping the total number of parking spaces is a very effective way to ensure less debt requirements. If supply is restricted, emissions will inevitably stabilize as opposed to continually increasing along with campus growth. Instead of investing in new parking structures, the University could put money into improving bicycle infrastructure, bus routes and other transportation alternatives. Additionally, pursuing housing developments for students and faculty in close proximity to campus, as the LRDP currently does, will allow the campus to grow without the need for additional parking spaces.

PROPOSED PROJECT: The University’s academic curriculum needs to demonstrate a more serious commitment towards addressing climate change. Initiatives taken by the Education for Sustainable Living Program can help jumpstart student-led courses at the grassroots level. Additionally, the University’s Academic Senate, the representative body of the University faculty that can exercise some influence over academic matters, can create a core curriculum focused on climate change (About UC Governance, 2006). At the least, it should create a “flexible course module” on climate change that would be offered to all faculty to be integrated into relevant existing course offerings.

PROPOSED PROJECT: Work with administrators at other UC schools and the UCOP to lobby the state legislature to address capital budget funding reform. – Although this may the most difficult recommendation to implement, it may also be one of the most important as funding is probably the most important institutional barrier restricting emission reduction projects. UC Berkeley needs to work with other UC schools to push funding reform related to capital budget on two issues: - Allow the capital budget to borrow from the operating budget; - Ensure that bid reversions stay with the campus to fund energy efficiency components that may have been removed during value-engineering.

PROPOSED PROJECT: a visible dashboard in UC Berkeley website – The University does not currently have an integrated system to manage information relevant to GHG emissions generated by campus activities. Data collection from some potentially important sources (e.g., campus fleet, commute, air travel) is manual and often in terms of cost. This is particularly true for air travel, where there is no system that tracks air travel trips or mileage. Also, information on different GHG emissions sources is not integrated. It was not until we performed the inventory that we realized the relative size of the different sources of emissions on campus. This is typical of most institutions given that climate change mitigation is a fairly recent interest.

PROPOSED PROJECT: In addition to an overarching Office/director of Sustainability, awareness and coordination on the academic departmental level would be helpful in creating a culture of energy conservation that leads to reduced emissions by students and faculty. Every department needs a sustainability coordinator who is trained in principles of energy savings and can manage and communicate sustainability and GHG reduction data on a departmental level. These coordinators can disseminate information from the Directory of Sustainability (to be hired) and help implement mandates and policies created by administration and governing student bodies; they can also assess what types of policies are most effective.

PROPOSED PROJECT: fund graduate students to work with CCAR to improve the GHG reporting standards based on UCB experience and research.

PROPOSED PROJECT: Develop an online community which incorporates CalCAP experience in developing GHG inventories for different sources, and advertise this across the UC system. This wiki would become an interactive repository of best-practices for developing GHG inventories, and could ultimately be used to inform standards development.

PROPOSED PROJECT: The City of Berkeley passed Measure G in 2006, which calls for the city to reduce its carbon emissions. The City will soon begin collecting voluntary offsets payment from its residents for investment in local offset projects. These projects will invest this money into local programs that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, investment in the “Solar Schools” program is one such idea. If UC Berkeley were to join this program, it could contribute to the offset fund, and also benefit from some of the projects. UC Berkeley students could help to get this project off of the ground.

PROPOSED PROJECT: Currently all electricity is paid for by the central campus, and only some of the buildings are metered. This project would reduce energy consumption by creating financial incentives for departments to identify wasted energy, and adjust their practices to reduce energy consumption. A metering and data collection system would be established (using UC Berkeley technology), followed by a period over which baseline data would be collected. After establishment of the baseline, some type of incentive program would be established. For example: (1) Cap-and-trade program, or (2) Provide financial incentives to departments for reductions from baseline energy consumption (i.e., return 50% of electricity savings directly to the department).

Project to create and produce an innovative protype individual trash receptacle, with subdivided compartments, for use by students within their dorm room to make it easy to keep separate the different types of recyclables. Need: $1,000, 100% funded

Project to work with the Food Systems Committee of the UC Berkeley Student Union Sustainability Team to cooperatively operate the student-run produce stand at Kroeber Fountain every Wednesday from 11am to 3pm, providing fresh, local, organic produce from the farmer’s market to the campus and surrounding community. Need: $2,000, 25% funded

Project to cover the cost of showing environmental films and advance printed posters/ads/fliers to promote participation in the upcoming Earth Week 2008. Need: $4,000, 25% funded

Project for garden border boxes, supplies and tools, composting bins, and installation of an irrigation system to create an outdoors classroom with border gardens at University Village, which houses over 820 students and their families in Albany. Need: $2,500, 40% funded

Project to pilot an electricity efficient model at I-House for student residential settings, which can be thereafter used by the Greek housing system and other student residences. This grant is to implement steps that reduce electrical use at I-House. Since I-House gets its power from PG&E, the successfulness of steps taken to reduce electricity consumption/savings will be measurable and can be easily tracked via the monthly billing. Need: $10,000, 15% funded

Project to cultivate a 100 square feet green plant/soil cover on the roof of a campus building. Studies show such green roofs host soil and plant communities, contribute to increased stormwater retention, reduce urban “heat island” issues, reduce heat flow to building interior, and support wildlife. Placed adjacent to rooftop mechanical equipment, a green roof can reduce energy use for cooling compressors by 16%. Data-logging equipment borrowed from the Pacific Energy Center will be used to determine reduction in energy use compared to a conventional roof. Need: $10,900, 15% funded

Project to replace the existing 181 incandescent light bulbs in the lobby of Zellerbach Playhouse with low energy consumption compact florescent light bulbs. The bulbs are in use many evenings and weekends year round, up to eight hours at a time. The switch can be accomplished in a total of less than three hours. Need: $2,000, 100% funded

Project to create sustainable practices in Wurster Hall’s Design Studios, which produce tomorrow’s architects, planners, and landscape architects. Need: $2,990, 66% funded

Project to start the Greening Research@Berkeley (GR@B) Initiative Need: $10,000, 35% funded

Project to continue the highly successful Green Campus Program. For the last three years, this program has coordinated three light bulb exchanges, hosted Blackout Battles among campus residence halls to reduce energy, and displayed showrooms of best sustainable practices in The Green Room, The Green Suite, and The Green Apartment. This program is estimated to have generated about $100,000 in electrical energy savings so far. Need: $5,000, 80% funded

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