California State University, Dominguez Hills
PRE-2: Points of Distinction

CSUDH is surrounded by food deserts- areas where residents have low mobility access combined with low availability to fresh food- and serves many students who live in these food deserts and/or are food insecure. A recent CSUDH study shows that 61% of its students are food insecure, in comparison to the CSU-wide average which is 42% of all students. To address this need, the Office of Sustainability along with the Basic Needs Initiative, Campus Dining, Student Affairs, IT, and community partners have built up an elegant but effective network of sustainable food sources tied with a student-run distribution system. This includes a Campus Urban Farm that grows fresh produce for campus food pantries and Campus Dining, a student-run Food Recovery Network chapter that recovers unsold food from Campus Dining that would otherwise go into the landfill, and the addition of a community Farmers Market on campus to increase the availability of fresh produce as well as EBT and Market Match services for on and off campus community members. Campus IT has also developed a CSUDH Eats app which notifies students of extra food at events to further food recovery efforts on campus. The Office of Sustainability has also piloted cooking education demonstrations that have uncovered unique challenges and best practices for encouraging students to take advantage of these resources. These elements work together to increase access to fresh, locally farmed produce for the campus and community, to directly alleviate food insecurity, and to combat food waste while creating opportunities for engagement and education around sustainability.

CSUDH has one of the largest behind-the-meter battery storage systems in Southern California which currently provides demand response services that net the campus ~$80,000/year in savings on peak demand costs. This not only saves money for the students, but helps support resiliency for the local power grid and a potential battery storage solution for when the campus receives its 1.4 MW rooftop solar this fall.

Because of this and other innovative projects, CSUDH was also selected as one of only two CSU campuses to participate in SCE's Clean Energy Optimization Pilot (CEOP) program which gives financial incentives to the CSU and UC to identify and apply sustainable actions to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (https://news.csudh.edu/clean-energy-pilot/).

CSUDH is also the project site for a California Energy Commission (CEC) EPIC project which is adding cutting edge building automation in HVAC, window shades, and advanced LED lighting and controls in Welch Hall, the campus' main administration building. At the end of the project, CSUDH will serve as a CEC case study for the effectiveness of these new technologies in commercial buildings statewide and nationally.

The campus Sustainable Landscape Committee operates as a task force representing Grounds/Facilities, faculty, and students who collectively work to ensure campus grounds serve as a living laboratory for the university.

This committee is unique in that its goals expand holistically to include water efficiency standards, set policies for approving and supporting new faculty/student/staff-run gardens, building up tree canopy, and supporting student research projects around campus landscape. As a campus body, they also provide landscape review on all new capital landscape plans, ensuring a representative body has influence over campus landscape planning projects.