Portland State University
PRE-2: Points of Distinction

The Sustainability Dashboard was first launched in 2019 with electricity, gas, and water data. With the 2020 update, we have expanded on that foundation. Specifically, the updated Dashboard was designed to include:

-new data modules, including energy efficiency, energy use intensity, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
-utility data from several additional years, which helps to show trends in campus operations;
-new types of visualizations, including benchmarking and progress tracking comparing utility usage and GHG emissions overtime as compared with PSU’s baseline data;

Transparency and accountability are essential for continual improvements to reach sustainability goal, helping to uncover new insights, support decision-making, and encourage engagement from the campus community. The dashboard features visualization s of PSU's data allowing our community to track our progress toward our sustainability goals.

The Sustainability Mentorship Program offers all PSU students an opportunity to connect with professionals in a variety of sustainability-related fields. There is one cohort a year, with applications opening during the Fall term, and the program running from Winter through the end of Spring term.

It’s a mutually beneficial relationship. Sustainability Mentors have the opportunity to share their professional experiences with students, hone their leadership skills, gain new perspectives from their mentee’s interests and enthusiasm, learn about barriers facing entry-level professionals today, and support the up-and-coming wave of sustainability professionals.

This program has been supported through grant funding that will no longer be available at the end of this academic year. The students and mentors have found so much value in this experience and we are happy to announce that the Student Fee Committee has decided to institutionalize this program and provide student funding to ensure the program continues.

The Resilient Portland initiative at the Institute for Sustainable Solutions (ISS) started with a single intervention towards resilience in the City, but has become a long-term collaboration to further our vision for a just and resilient region. The initiative began with The Resilient Infrastructure Planning Exercise (RIPE) in early 2017 as a collaboration between ISS and the City of Portland to understand the risks posed by major natural disasters to City infrastructure, and to identify near- and long-term steps to build the resilience of those systems. The initial effort resulted in a report detailing the challenges and opportunities to building resilience in the City. When RIPE concluded a group of City staff from infrastructure bureaus continued to meet as the Disaster Resilience and Recovery Action Group. Their work has been supported by ISS and dozens of PSU interns. ISS continues to convene the group and is now working with the City to update their Mitigation Action Plan which builds on the work that started in 2017. The Mitigation Action Plan will build on the collaborative work that ISS and the City have engaged in over the past four years. It will reflect the City's learning around resilience that has taken place as part of this effort; and put PSU faculty and student expertise in the center of the plan. The many facets of ISS's Resilient Portland initiative reflect our ongoing commitment to not simply deliver on projects toward a just and resilient future but long-term commitment to transformation in the region.