UC Berkeley On Track To Zero Waste By 2020

March 10, 2015The University of California at Berkeley annually grades itself on sustainability and energy use.

The UC Berkeley Office Of Sustainability And Energy has released its annual report for 2014 which reveals significant achievements in recycling water and promoting student interest in sustainability courses, but notes that progress in some areas, such as waste management, remains slower.

Here are the highlights of a news item by Lenin Silva, "UC Berkeley Office Of Sustainability And Energy Releases Report For 2014," published online in the Campus News Section of DailyCal.org:

• In 2012, the campus met its first greenhouse gas emissions target by reducing emissions to levels lower than those in 1990. To meet the ultimate goal of zero greenhouse gas emissions, the campus must reduce its emissions by about 80 percent, or 118,000 metric tons.

• 2014 greenhouse gas emissions at UC Berkeley, by source:

- Steam                                         35%
- Electricity                                    31%
- Air Travel                                     15%
- Natural Gas                                  8%
- Employee Commute                     8%
- Water, Waste & Refrigerants        1%
- Student Commute                        1%
- Fleet                                             1%

• Lisa McNeilly, campus director of sustainability and energy and the report’s primary author, tells the DailyCal.org that the campus currently uses 18 percent less water than it did in 1990. McNeilly attributed this reduction to initiatives that educate students in and residents of Berkeley on efficient water use, which were implemented recently.

• McNeilly also said that researchers in the College of Engineering recently developed technologies with the capacity to monitor real-time energy usage in a building. At this time, the technology can only read an entire building’s output. In the future, the technology will be able to measure the electricity output of a specific floor or area of a building. "There is much talk in higher education about having a campus as a living lab," McNeilly said.

• Although the campus did not meet all waste-management goals, the report states that the campus is on track to reach its 2020 goal of zero waste.

• The implementation of paper, plastic and landfill waste bins has helped diverge trash from going to the landfill, but bins with the three labels are not always easy to find, particularly at large events, such as basketball games.

• The number of UC Berkeley graduates who took at least one sustainability course grew from 26 percent in 2013 to 29 percent in 2014. "I think it is incredible that students across a variety of majors are getting the chance to study sustainability in their classes,” said Lindsey Agnew, a UC Berkeley junior who contributed to the report and quoted in the post. "Something that the sustainability report highlights is the high level of student engagement and interest in making the campus community more sustainable."

Read Lenin Silva's DailyCal.org Campus News post here.

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