Fall Newsletter Volume II, Issue I Inside this issue:
Office of Sustainability
2
Lawns to Meadows
4
Campus Bicycle Initiative
6
Letter from ASUC External Affairs Office
6
TGIF Projects in the News
7
TGIF 2008-2011
7
How to Apply for a TGIF Grant
8
New TGIF Website & Blog
9
Composting Has Arrived at UC Berkeley! by PJ Chakrabarti The Compost Alliance is a winner of a 2011 TGIF Grant. The Compost Alliance (CA) is a student group founded in Fall 2010 dedicated to implementing a campuswide compost collection system and diverting over 2000 tons of compostable waste from landfill. Student coordinators and volunteers work directly with campus stakeholders to progressively implement compost systems in each building across campus as well as help edu-
cate the campus community on waste reduction topics. Housed under Campus Recycling and Refuse Services (CRRS), the CA is funded primarily by grants from The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF), Alameda County Waste Management Au-
thority grant, and the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Sustainability (CACS) Green Fund. Currently composting services cost the campus more than sending compostable materials (continued on page 5)
Berkeley’s Campus Dashboard Make’s Cal’s Consumption Visible, by Sam Borgeson In 2008, UCB used 214,000,000 kWh of electricity, which released 1.2 tons of CO2 per person on campus. Have you ever wondered how energy and water are being used on campus? Have you contemplated what your portion of the consumption is? Could you use data to better understand resource consumption on campus and/or document your work to reduce it? These are the type of questions that have been motivating the small group of stu-
dents developing the Berkeley Campus Dashboard. The TGIF funded project uses a web-based system to collect, aggregate, and visualize data on energy and water use across campus. So far, the system provides visibility into monthly electricity and water usage in campus buildings dating all the way back to the 1970’s and, where available, has high resolution data on energy (and sometimes steam and water) consumption in about 30
wired buildings. In their own words: “Our central goal is to increase “literacy” related to consumption on campus and to provide insights that apply beyond UC Berkeley. But we also hope that this project gives students, staff, faculty, and administrators some of the tools they need to think about and address waste on campus. As the old engineering rule of thumb states: “you can’t (continued on pg. 3)
Free Speech Movement Cafe
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UC Berkeley’s Office of Sustainability The 2011 Fall Semester has just begun and the Office of Sustainability has already been working on initiatives to make the UC Berkeley’s campus more sustainable. Through publishing their Monthly Green Newsletter, writing the 2011 Sustainability Report, and gathering awareness through the TGIF-sponsored Talking Louder Campaign and hosting a Sustainable Forum once per semester, the office provides a consistently allows the growth of the campus’ sustainability culture and reduction of green house gas emissions to reach climate neutrality. The Office of Sustainability is concentrating on the following goals for 2011 along with campus implementations to meet these goals: Energy and Climate- By 2014, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels and achieve climate neutrality as soon as possible. Progress: Emissions are now 5% below 2008 levels. TEAM Water- Reduce portable water use to 10% below 2008 levels by 2020. Progress: Water usage has dropped 2.4% last year. Students Built Environment- Design future projects to minimize energy and water consumption and Joanna Young wastewater production; incorporate sustainable design principles into capital investment decisions; Zara Fernandez base capital investment decisions on life cycle cost, including the cost of known future expenditures. Nik Crain Progress: The campus now has seven (7) LEED certified building projects. In additional, all major Rachel Balmy projects currently in the planning and design phase are expected to be LEED certified. Nicole Campbell Waste - Achieve a 75% diversion rate by June 2012 and zero waste by 2020. The diversion rate for Michelle Lowe the campus is 67% although the rate drops to 41% when construction waste is included. Taylor Zhou Green Purchasing-Develop a green purchasing policy by 2011. The campus purchased at least 6.3 Kevin Liang million of environmentally preferable products last year, and has increased the percentage of copy James Won paper purchases that contain post-consumer waste to 81%. Kaya Sugarman Transportation- By 2014, reduce fuel by use by commuter and Staff campus fleet to 25% below 1990 levels. Progress: This year, Lisa Mcneilly fuel use is over 30% below 1990 levels. Director of Sustainability Food and Housing- Increase sustainable food purchases by Kira Stoll campus foodservice providers to at least 20% by 2020. ProSustainability Specialist gress: Purchase of sustainable food has gone up by almost 3 percentage points. For more information, check the Sustainability Report 2011. The department is composed of staff and students who work together as well as have individual goals to enhance the productivity and improvement of UC Berkeley’s sustainability awareness. Here is a summary of what the team has already accomplished and future projects. Talking Louder 2nd Generation (winner of a 2011 TGIF Grant)- collaborating with other student groups and departments, such as RSP and The Campus Bike Initiative. Hosted the 2011 Fall Semester Sustainability Forum with over 100 attendees. Improving the Office of Sustainability website to create an informative space. Sustainability Walking Tours on Cal Day: Introducing Berkeley as a Green Campus to incoming students, further fueling their excitement to be part of the Cal green community. The Office will be releasing new reports this year and there will be updated financials for current and potential energy projects WORKbright green– UC Berkeley’s new Staff Sustainability Training offered by the Office of Sustainability. It is the first staff sustainability training of its kind at UC Berkeley to gain the tools and knowledge needed to green the workplace. Click here to learn more and apply. -written by Zara Fernandez The Office of Sustainability has been the winner of four TGIF grants since 2008, including Talking Louder About Sustainability and Teaching, Learning, & Change.
Want to learn more about the Office of Sustainability? Visit the Office of Sustainability Website Sign up for the Green Newsletter-Stay up to date with current Green events, projects, and internships on campus Like our Facebook Page-Spread the word to make Berkeley a greener campus
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Campus Dashboard (continued) manage what you don’t measure.” We have probably spent as much time looking at and working with the data as anyone outside of facilities and we are still finding patterns in the data that drive our curiosity further. With just the electricity data we’re getting from some of the more wired buildings, we can see daytime and night time, weekdays and weekends, spring break, hot days, retrofits, fire drills, and finals crunch time and the associated all-nighters. But we also see energy wasted 24 hours a day. We can see the signature of lights on outdoors during the day or on all night in empty rooms. We see heating and cooling systems working hard when no one is around. Where we have water data, we can see occasional plumbing problems, the impact of high or low flow toilets, and as a bonus, we get a beautiful proxy for building occupancy. Based on such observations, we have little doubt that substantial savings of energy, water, and other resources can be achieved while actually improving the level of the amenities that buildings provide. Our fondest wish is to be able to provide high quality data for more campus buildings and to
help direct the attention of educators, researchers, staff and student advocates to these issues.” This wish is being partially fulfilled by the campus commitment to building commissioning, which is a data driven process that permanently installs meters to help guide efficiency improvements. Nearly 1/4 of campus buildings are expected to have been commissioned within the next 5 years, but dashboard project team members believe these efforts could go even further under the guidance of an engaged and creative campus community. To see the different manifestations of the Berkeley Campus Dashboard, you can: Visit the Free Speech Movement Café to learn how much electricity is being used in that space on your behalf. It features a colorful string of LEDs running up the side of a pillar that show the café’s energy use in real time, broken out by categories like lighting, coffee, and electrical outlets. Visit the lobby of Wurster Hall, which has a set of three informational panels and a touch screen kiosk. The panels use Campus (continued on pg. 5)
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About the Lawns to Meadows Grant The Lawns to Meadows Plan and Implementation project proposes a sustainable redesign of selected on campus lawn areas. The project is funded by The Green Initiative Fund and managed by UC Berkeley’s Capital Projects. The goal is to convert specific grass lawns to regionally appropriate plants to promote a more efficient use of water resources and fossil fuel consumption. Simultaneously, the sites will maintain their natural features of open space and of a communal and peaceful setting for academic students to use. The grant will be utilized in order to promote the efficient use of potable water resources as it also improves energy efficiency through the reduction of fossil fuel consumption. The renown neoclassical features of the core landscape will be retained as transformation and modernizing improvements are made. Qualities of the Campus’s Site Conversions The already converted sites feature drip irrigation (a low precipitation system), porous concrete and decomposed granite paths, pavement and stone pavers set in sand, native grassland sods, native grass blends (which only need to be mowed 1-2 times per year), organic tanbark groundcovers, seasonal flowering plants, and drought tolerant perennial plants. Such conversions have already greatly reduced water use, and maintenance costs, while the composting in place system has also completely eliminating the need for fertilizers. The changes implemented have already begun to promote the efficient use of potable water resources, and have improved energy and fossil fuel efficiency, demonstrating a better use of scarce resources, labor, and plant wildlife diversity. The worn turf has been replaced with new plant life in order to provide new organic environments for animals while still providing open space and courtyards in ideal locations for student congregation and usage. Proposed Site Conversions The proposed locations for the additional Lawns to Meadows sites are the current lawn in front of Anthony Hall and the lawn behind the Alumni Annex building running alongside Strawberry Creek. The Anthony Hall site is exposed to south facing sun and thus requires a large amount of water for maintenance of the lawn, currently requiring 661 gallons per week, which translates to approximately 26,460 gallons per year. The site proposes the conversion of the current lawn to drought tolerant ground covers and low shrub plantings to be used as lawn substitutes. Doing so drastically reduces the need for maintenance and repair, while simultaneously lowering water costs. This project is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2011. The second proposed location behind the Alumni Annex building is an open north facing lawn. The proposed changes seek to save water (current water usage: 3,600 gallons per week and 144,000 gallons per year) and reduce maintenance while still retaining open space and creek side sitting space qualities. The current lawn will be replaced with habitat riparian plants. In the future, a raised boardwalk pathway may be added along the edge of the creek to improve visibility and provide better accessibility to the creek.
-written by Kathy Tong
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Compost Has Arrived (continued) to the landfill. As such, the first phase of Compost Alliance’s system rollout is, “Achieving Critical Mass.” The aim of this phase is to establish compost systems in enough buildings to prove its efficacy at reducing waste and to create enough demand that more cost-effective col-
lection will be possible, such as collection of compostable waste by inhouse services. By reducing the cost, other buildings will also more easily be able to participate. The Compost Alliance has already implemented compost collection in University Hall and will soon bring composting to
other targeted buildings on campus including Eshleman Hall. The next buildings to come online include A&E, Barrows, Sproul, and Stanley. The Compost Alliance sets up bins in the bathrooms and kitchenettes to collect paper towels and food waste. The compost bins are also emptied daily along with the trash to maintain a clean, healthy, and sustainable work environment. Additionally,
the Compost Alliance has created campus-wide compost, paper recycling, bottle & can recycling, and landfill signage which will be implemented across campus in the coming months. With minor but conscious effort on everyone’s part, we can eliminate unnecessary waste and bring UC Berkeley closer to our Zero Waste by 2020 goal.
Campus Dashboard (continued)
Dashboard data to detail the relationship between Wurster’s electricity usage, and consumption at individual whole campus scales. The touch screen display lets users watch the building’s electricity and water use in real time and explore its past consumption. Visit the evolving (and still in progress) website behind the project that allows users to search for all the data available on specific buildings and provides tools for visualization and comparison: http:// dashboard.berkeley.edu/ Get involved and contribute your creative talents to the challenges of understanding and reducing our campus resource usage. The project team is grateful to the TGIF Committee
for their funding and support, to the Berkeley Institute of the Environment for sponsoring us, to the Berkeley Institute of Design for hosting the project and facilitating many brainstorming and design sessions, to Eli Perszyk of Wurster Hall and Daryl Ross of the Free Speech Movement Cafe, Sukjit Johal and Elizabeth Dupuis of Moffitt Library and to all the students on campus whose fees make the work possible. Student team members include: Sam Borgeson (ERG), Omar Khan (CS), Eric Kaltman (CS), Nathan Brown (Architecture), Elizabeth Goodman (I-School), Elliot Nahman (Building Science), Deidre Fogg (Architecture), Josiah Johnston (ERG)
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ASUC External Affairs Office Contributes to Sustainability at Cal Letter from Nolan Pack, Sustainability Co-Director, Office of the External Affairs Vice President, ASUC Programs like The Green Initiative Fund and the many projects supported by it offer an inspiring demonstration of UC Berkeley’s ongoing commitment to sustainability. If our elected officials approached environmental policy with half that amount of care and enthusiasm, the world would be a much greener place. In an effort to channel some of Cal’s spirit into the local, state, and national discussions on sustainability, Joey Freeman, ASUC External Affairs Vice President, added two Sustainability Co-Directors to his staff. Chris Ackman and I, appointed this summer, have taken on a number of exciting projects that address a diverse range of environmental issues. Some of our goals deal directly with current legislative issues. To that end, we will be campaigning with CALPIRG for initiatives to cut subsidies to industrial agribusiness, end the use of methyl iodide in California, and ban disposable plastic bags in the City of Berkeley. In addition to working on legislation, we hope to strengthen our connections with state and nationwide environmental groups. Sustainability-themed conferences like Power Shift West and the California Student Sustainability Coalition’s Convergence offer valuable networking and enrichment opportunities for eco-conscious Cal students. Beyond sending representatives to these events, we hope to be able to host these and other conferences in the future. In fact, we are currently investigating the possibility of hosting the International Student Energy Summit at UC Berkeley in 2013. In terms of our more campus-specific projects, we hope to work with TGIF on at least two important initiatives. In partnership with the ASUC Sustainability Team and Fair Trade Towns USA, we’ve started working toward Fair Trade University certification for Cal. We’re also working with ECO (Environmental Clubs and Organizations) to create an interactive social media tool that will unite sustainability efforts on campus and encourage collective action. Since we know that TGIF funding would go a long way in taking these plans to the next level, Chris and I will be sure to apply for 2012 grants this spring. Please contact me if you are interested in any of our projects, have any suggestions, or would like more information: nolanpack@gmail.com
YOUTUBE VIDEO 2010 TGIF Grant Winner BERC Energy Symposium October 20-21, 2011 Overview The 2011 BERC Energy Symposium will take place on October 20-21 to showcase cutting-edge energy research from UC Berkeley and debate the most pressing issues and crucial strategies for addressing our shared global energy challenges. Come join us! 2011 Berkeley Innovation Expo Date: Oct 20th, 2011 - Thursday Time: 6-9pm Location: Berkeley Art Museum
2011 BERC Energy Symposium Date: Oct 21st, 2011 - Friday Time: 8am-6pm Location: MLK Student Union
Campus Bicycle Initiative, a 2011 TGIF Grant Winner, held the 1st Campus Bike Day at UC Berkeley on Friday, September 9, 2011. Watch the video footage from the day’s events.
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In Only 4 grant cycles, 2008-2011... $956539 awarded 185 projects proposed 48 projects funded 24 staff-led projects 24 student-led projects 22 projects completed 23 projects in progress 3 projects discontinued 95 paid student internships funded
2011 TGIF Grant Winners
TGIF Projects In The News Campus Bicycle Initiative
Hydration Stations
Fight the Flow
Low Water Irrigation
Greeks Energy Competition
Talking Louder, Next Generation
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How to Apply for a 2012 TGIF Grant You MUST submit an abstract proposal before you are eligible to apply for a TGIF Grant. You can submit an abstract by the “early” deadline OR “final” deadline. –Early Abstract Submissions due: Monday, January 23, 2012 by 5pm. –Final Abstract Submissions due: Monday, February 13, 2012 by 5pm. Selected abstracts are invited by the TGIF Committee to submit grant applications in April. –TGIF Grant Applications due: Monday, April 2, 2012 by 5pm. Be sure to check out the TGIF Apply page on our website for application materials. Email TGIF Coordinator Katherine Walsh at tgif_info@berkeley.edu with questions or to set-up an appointment. Katherine is available to assist all applicants with their project proposals.
COMPLETED PROJECTS AS OF JUNE 30, 2011 CATEGORIZED BY YEAR OF COMPLETION 2009
2010
2011
2010 Bike to Work Day Regional Sponsorship CLAS Carbon Smart and LEED-EB Certification Project
Berkeley Student Food Collective Storefront
Healthy You for a Healthy Universe
Earth Week 2010
Custodial Staff Outreach
Lower Sproul Plaza Redevelopment Eco-Charrette
No More Down the Drain
Earth Week 2011
Student Internships for Jump-Starting the Office of Sustainability
Talking Louder about Sustainability
Hydration Station Installation and Design Guidelines for Existing Buildings
Anthony Hall Window Replacement and LEED-EB Certification Discontinued
I Heart Tap Water
Wurster Hall Composting Project Discontinued
Mobilizing Sustainability at BerkeleyThe Greening Operations (GO!) Team
Building Sustainability at Cal Earth Week 2009
BicyCAL
Reduction in Chemical Use at UC Botanical Garden Talking Louder About Campus Sustainability Water Metering and Conservation Water Metering and Sub-Metering of UC Campus Buildings Wurster Hall Sub-metering Better Bin Discontinued
The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF) is a grant-making fund for sustainability projects on UC Berkeley's campus. About $280,000 per year are available for grants; students, faculty, and staff are eligible to submit project proposals. Projects are be selected for funding by an annually appointed Grant-Making Committee consisting of students, faculty, and staff, in which students have the majority vote.
Katherine Walsh Grants Coordinator kwalsh@berkeley.edu 510-643-2992
TGIF is funded by a $5 per semester student fee, beginning in fall 2007 and persisting for 10 years. The fee referendum was approved by the student body during the April 2007 ASUC elections. It received final approval by the Chancellor and Regents during the summer. In Fall 2010, the fee was raised to $5.50 as required by the referendum.
We’re on the web! http://tgif.berkeley.edu Twitter @TGIF_UCB Facebook Page “The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF)”
University of California, Berkeley 400 Eshleman Hall #4500 Berkeley, CA 94720-4500 tgif_info@berkeley.edu
2011-2012 TGIF Committee VOTING MEMBERS
NON-VOTING MEMBERS
Administration: Kira Stoll ASUC: Kailin Lu CACS: Rachel Chang Facilities Services: Lin King Faculty: David Jenkins Graduate Assembly: Autumn Petros-Good Back Page Story Headline Student-at-Large Rep: Mauricio Castillo
Committee on Student Fees: Deanna Alwafai Office of Sustainability: Lisa McNeilly Ex-Officio: Judy Chess TGIF: Katherine Walsh
TGIF Launches New Website TGIF launched a new website and blog in May in order to provide the UC Berkeley community with better resources for their campus sustainability projects. The TGIF website serves as an educational tool for those who need funding for their sustainability projects, are looking to join the TGIF committee or project teams, or need a green internship. The website also provides TGIF campaign history and information for other universities on how to start their own green funds. The most important section of the website falls under “Grants”; here visitors can find out how to apply for a grant and download application materials. Visitors can also browse the pages of every project ever
funded by TGIF. The website is supplemented by the TGIF Changents blog, providing real-time updates on TGIF-funded projects, and campus sustainability events and campaigns. Through the blog, TGIF is able to share its efforts of social and environmental change with the global community. Students, faculty, and staff can also follow TGIF on Facebook and Twitter and receive reminders about this year’s grant deadlines and awards. We hope you will visit the TGIF website and blog and learn more about getting involved with UC Berkeley’s campus sustainability projects!