10-23-19 ACS Meeting Notes
- smckinstry (Unlicensed)
Date
Oct 23, 2019
Participants
Walt Kanzler
Sara McKinstry
Peter Sloan
Mirle Rabinowitz Bussell
Subrata Chakraborty
Celia Sanchez-Selaya
Haodong Liu (postdoc sitting in for Ping Liu)
Ken Hall
Gordon McCord
Hugh Hagues
Slides and Handouts
Action items
Notes
ACS members are encouraged to read UC Bending the Curve report.
Reminder of mission of ACS: engaging more people in sustainability, Green teams, communications out to campus, recommendations through VC RMP to Chancellor and Cabinet, info sharing and then taking action.
GREEN NEW DEAL (Peter Sloan, Graduate Student ACS rep)
New student movement and other UCSD-affiliated community members. Hoping to collaborate with ACS.
Name comes from new federal legislation in the US House that details rapid decarbonization in economy. Part of September 2019 global action week.
Connected to GSA Climate Action and Policy committee.
UCSD should be a world leader in rapid institutional decarbonization, be we’re not…. yet. Why not? Growing number of faculty and students don’t think the campus leadership is doing this.
Meetings on the first Friday of every month. 70 people attended first meeting from 4-6 PM on a Friday afternoon.
Slack channel and website where share info and learn: e.g., Peter shared notes from meeting in Oct with Michelle and Sara on UCSD climate action plan update.
Asking for:
Teach more UCSD students about the climate crisis/climate justice.
Presentations to classes. (They are presenting to as many classes as professors will have them.)
Departmental workshops.
Climate justice Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) requirement.
Curricular overhaul.
Specify and meet decarbonization goals:
See questions in handout. Would like answers in writing and want to have meetings to discuss.
More investment, more transparency, more accountability.
Required training (all staff, faculty, students).
New UC President hiring process input.
Want to bring people into the decision-making process to understand decarbonization.
Build a UC-wide Green New Deal movement: organizing with climate groups on all UC campuses.
Walt and Sara: UC already spending money on decarbonization and advanced of many areas, but need to balance within reason with budgets and ambitions as a campus. Good for Chancellor and CFO to hear how much faculty and students care about decarbonization. Welcome working together to promote similar interests.
Gordon: All of this is fantastic. Shows lack of information sharing about sustainability on campus. Most people on campus don’t know we have a climate action plan, what it means, what’s in it, and our sustainability efforts. Need knowledge diffusion: all they see are cranes and construction. What is UCSD’s sustainability plan amidst all this growth? People on campus should be able to hold their phones up to any building and be able to download sustainability plan, link to LEED buildings, etc. Even though info online need to do something more proactive to get info out. Poster on each building: wondering how sustainable we are? Look here. Need to push more to get information in front of people.
Gordon: Most people uncomfortable with offsets. Leakage, lack of additionally, etc. Most serious people say that’s not decarbonization. We need to talk about offsets markets.
Gordon: With Yale, UCSD is home to the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. We should take advantage of that more. What do we want to do with youth energy around these goals? 115 campuses. Knowledge aggregator to promote policies to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Each national network doing different things. Put info in front of policymakers to push, but have to decide what want to do. Next meeting in Jan in Yale.
Peter: UCSD in particular could own decarbonization as its central indentity and doesn’t. Huge amount of unspecified offsets. Need to show how lowering emissions immediately is part of our identity. Systemwide it’s being measured.
Walt: Wendell Brase and UC Irvine’s framing around sustainability as a core value of campus. If that’s one of the goals of this group, Walt as ACS chair supports that. Create a work plan around that: what would it take? Go back to our own areas to move it forward.
Subrata: Agrees with all of it but as a scientist believes we should depoliticize the entire thing. Since Green New Deal comes from Democratic Party, take out the word and would get more people on board. We want max people participating, encourage personal behavior and change. When politics comes into picture, gets complicated and people become rigid and can’t make things work. Focus on future generations. He’s on Mike Levin’s nuclear plant task force with people on both sides. Provides technical and scientific info with no bias on nuclear technology. Info to decisionmakers.
Ken: echos agreement with everything said. To touch on commuting piece of carbon footprint, go talk to Josh Kavanaugh, UCSD Director of Transportation.
SUSTAINABILITY/CLIMATE CHANGE CURRICULUM (Sara McKinstry, Walt Kanzler)
Progress to date:
Sara already collates information on all sustainability focused and related courses on campus for STARS reporting.
USP 169: Intro to Green Buildings
BA in Anthropology with a concentration in Climate Change and Human Solutions
Dr. Keith Pezzoli (USP and Chair of CCEC) and Dr. Adam Aron (Pysch and Neuroscience) co-leading a new Academic Senate Task Force on UCSD’s response to the Climate Crisis
Areas in which we could improve (and get more points under STARS 2.2):
AC-2 Learning Outcomes (currently get 0.19 point out of 8 points)
AC-6: Sustainability Literacy Assessment (currently get 0 out of 4 points)
IN-6: Center for Sustainability Across the Curriculum (currently get 0 out of 0.5 point)
IN-38: Sustainability Course Designation (currently get 0 out of 0.5 point)
Hugh: We take more of a “bottom up” approach at UCSD, while industry is “top down.” More companies are including sustainability as part of their annual reporting. Corporate side can educate and counsel the academics on turning out students who need to know about sustainability. UCSD focused on computers, big pharma, biotech. Need to see sustainability as a core academic value.
Mirle: Deans usually challenge around budget/finances and student time to completion. How can we express the urgency of the climate crises to them?Tack on curriculum discussion to climate action plan open meeting. Share climate action plan beyond just ACS. Bring in 40-50 people to get support and movement.
SUSTAINABLE BUILDING POLICY & GUIDELINES
See slides for details.
Deliverables by Fall 2020:
Policy and guidelines that include environmental and human health and wellness.
Guidance to help pick the right design and build teams.
Training for key staff with faculty and students invited.
Language and process for including sustainability in contracts and leases.
Metrics to measure progress.
Life cycle cost analysis tool and process.
Student learning opportunities.
Stakeholder engagement for periodic updates.
ZERO WASTE UPDATE
See slides for details.
Fiscal Year 2019 reporting (July 1, 2018 - June 30, 2019);
38% diversion rate w/o C+D (76% with C+D).
34% in FY18
0.97 lbs/weighted campus user/day
1.30 in FY18
Caveat: Discrepancies in Republic Services MSW and recycling tonnage reporting•38% diversion rate w/o C+D (76% with C+D)
Going forward:
Plan finished with over 20 recommendations across reduction, reuse, diversion, and education:
New Waste Diversion, Recycling and Sustainability manager in FM: Jeffrey Summerhays
EDCO started 9/16/19 as new municipal solid waste, commingled recycling, and organics recycling hauler:
On-site full-time coordinator: Fabian Rodriguez
Waste audit within 90 days (Nov 4 and Nov 11, 2019)
Weight data by building starting in November
Assistance with outreach (video, annual award)
Outreach through Athletics and RecycleMania starting in Jan 2020.
VC OMCP Hub is live! View the latest announcements, updates, and more.