91¶ÌÊÓƵ

• April 26, 2016

A little more than a year ago, 91¶ÌÊÓƵ President Leroy M. Morishita signed a Carbon Commitment with the advocacy group . With it, came a promise to support programs that would help the campus become “climate neutral.”

Now, students and the Campus Sustainability Committee are using the results of a campus Greenhouse Gas Inventory to start creating a Climate Action Plan to fulfill the commitment.

CSUEB Director of Sustainability Jillian Buckholz said the project is not only good for the campus, but it helps students apply what they’re learning in the classroom to real-world problems.

“They’re taking complex data sets and figuring out how to relay them in a user-friendly way,” she said, adding students also experience working in groups. “I really see them as consultants on these projects and this is something they can put on their resume.”

Results from the inventory showed that upward of 75 percent of the gas emissions on campus come from travel — either students and faculty commuting to school or traveling to various events or locations off-campus. Moving forward, the Campus Sustainability Committee will advise the campus on ways to operate more sustainably. 

“The first step is always conservation and what are some renewables we should be using, whether that’s more shuttles, more student and faculty on-campus housing, or discouraging the use of single-occupancy vehicles,” Buckholz said.

She added that universities like CSUEB in particular are poised to create real and lasting climate change.

“We are essentially a city within a city,” Buckholz said. “We are small and compact and don’t have to worry about some of the things larger municipalities have to deal with because we’re self-governed. We can make big changes that have high impact, and also educate people in the process." 

In addition to the greenhouse gas inventory, 91¶ÌÊÓƵ was recently recognized along with several other colleges on the for taking action toward mitigating climate change.

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