Cal Poly Humboldt
OP-4: Building Operations and Maintenance

Several singular elements contribute to a more comprehensive O&M program at HSU, but it does not yet meet the expectation of a multi-attribute, sustainable management program. The most complete coverage program is the Green Cleaning operations of custodial services. This program covering campus and residential housing uses Green Seal Certified products for nearly all chemicals employed (96%), along with long-life microfiber materials.

As part of a comprehensive water reduction strategy for the campus over 85% of the buildings were retrofitted or reset to meet water use requirements for 2018 CA Green Building Standards and all ongoing repairs or retrofits meet or exceed those standards. Ongoing monitoring for leak or excessive process use of water is a standard practice for Building Service Engineers along with user education reminders to submit work requests for leaks and malfunctioning fixtures.

The campus has a long history of implementing comprehensive waste recycling and diversion programs that range from single stream capture of common recyclables, capturing non-perishable past best-by-date market place items for use at a campus food pantry, to diverting >95% of our dining food-waste to a vermicomposting facility. Construction and Demolition waste is tracked and diverted to CSU-wide specifications from remodel and construction activities, with vendors for materials reviewed at least annually. These activities result in a CalRecycle State Agency Reporting Center (SARC) waste report disposal rate of 1.59 and 0.28 pounds/person/day for employees and students, respectively, for 2018, which puts the campus at 85% below the target disposal rate expected for our type of facilities.

Additionally, in recent years HSU has started recommissioning building for energy use and building systems with approximately 13% of the square footage completed. Since the beginning of 2018 we have also started a prioritized installation of full building-level metering for utilities with 9.2% of building sq. ft. installed now and another 33% to be completed by the end of 2021. These systems will also be integrated into our new Energy Information System (EIS) to automate data collection and analytics for these utilities and for the buildings also getting new control systems, additional functionality of controlling those building systems.

To ensure maintenance activities for the campus are scheduled and tracked efficiently, HSU uses a modern Maintenance Management System with thorough preventive maintenance (PM) tasks setup to keep everyone on task and informed of reactive, scheduled and predictive maintenance needs.

Taken as a package of processes and strategies, these actions are providing a good start to a comprehensive sustainability program for O&M and we look forward to finalizing it into a formal program when resources allow.

One item not directly in the O&M process, but has a great affect on the buildings is the procurement of materials to outfit the functions of those buildings. Group II Equipment: this equipment includes department bought items such as whiteboards, furniture, microscopes, anything that is not affixed to the building. The University Contracts and Procurement Office (which is the central point for processing orders) flags these items and they are subject to Facilities Management O+M review and approval. This affords O+M the ability to deny purchases that are in conflict with the CSU Sustainability Policy, such as personal heaters, desk lamps, fans, personal refrigerators, microwaves, etc. This also allows us to limit non-essential utility consumption on campus.