Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 74.81
Liaison Kelli O'Day
Submission Date March 6, 2020

STARS v2.2

University of California, Davis
PA-1: Sustainability Coordination

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 1.00 / 1.00 Camille Kirk
Director of Sustainability and Campus Sustainability Planner
Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Sustainability committee(s) 

Does the institution have at least one sustainability committee?:
No

The charter or mission statement of the committee(s) or a brief description of each committee's purview and activities:
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Members of each committee, including affiliations and role:
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Sustainability office(s) 

Does the institution have at least one sustainability office that includes more than 1 full-time equivalent employee?:
Yes

A brief description of each sustainability office:
The Office of Sustainability has three core roles in developing, leading and coordinating sustainability efforts throughout the UC Davis campus:

Demonstrate Leadership: The Office of Sustainability provides vision, direction and support for sustainability; advocates for environmental stewardship and sustainability in decision-making processes; leads sustainability planning efforts to guide implementation actions; and participates in policy development.

Foster Connections: The Office of Sustainability builds relationships with external partners, institutions, government again, and NGOs; coordinates across campus departments; and helps link research efforts to campus operations and engagement efforts.

Create a Culture of Sustainability: The Office of Sustainability conducts sustainability assessment; measures and tracks performance metrics; communicates about sustainability; and develops and runs engagement programs.

To fulfill these roles, staff members create strategies and plans to improve campus operations, partner with faculty and students, work to implement the UC Office of the President's sustainability policy, establish sustainability metrics for UC Davis, and inspire the community to work toward a sustainable future. The office also participates in the planning and design of campus development projects and actively work with Campus Planning and Environmental Planning, which are part of the same administrative unit as the Office of Sustainability.

Full-time equivalent of people employed in the sustainability office(s):
5.25

Sustainability officer(s) 

Does the institution have at least one sustainability officer?:
Yes

Name and title of each sustainability officer:
See the Notes field below for our campus sustainability officers by name and title.

Institution-wide coordination 

Does the institution have a mechanism for broad sustainability coordination for the entire institution?:
Yes

A brief description of the activities and substantive accomplishments of the institution-wide coordinating body or officer during the previous three years:
The Office of Sustainability (OS) has been quite active the past three years, in spite of staffing shifts.

Some accomplishments aligning with our core roles are:
Demonstrate Leadership
OS was instrumental in helping the campus analyze and opt to invest in shifting the campus district steam heating system to a low-temperature heating hot water system, which will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save water. OS first proposed this action in the campus Climate Action Plan, and during the master planning study advocated for a cost of carbon to be included in the life-cycle cost analysis for the project. The first part of this project is slated to start construction in April 2020. OS wrote and won a $476,000 grant for a new recycling truck, bins and signs to advance the progress to a zero waste campus.

Foster Connections:
OS staff co-led the formation of the Yolo Resiliency Collaborative (see credit EN-10); participate on the Capital Region Climate Readiness Collaborative Steering Committee; and sit on the boards of the Yolo Subbasin Groundwater Agency for sustainable groundwater management, and the Woodland-Davis Clean Water Agency. OS has been actively collaborating with the campus Global Affairs unit on conceptualizing ways to implement the UN SDGs throughout campus efforts to advance sustainability. OS has actively coordinated campus stakeholders around communication and messaging alignment and is in the process of a massive coordination effort around the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, with other 60 events now planned at UC Davis and in our local community. OS also is the host organization for The Green Initiative Fund, a student-fee funded sustainability grant program run by a majority-student committee.

Create a Culture of Sustainability:
OS has reported into an international sustainability ranking metric with the results of attaining #1 in the US and #3 in the world in campus sustainability; hired our first-ever Assessment Program Manager; and are one of the first UC campuses to report under the STARS 2.2 metric. We have launched a newsletter with analytics capability so that we can better understand areas for improving our communication with our audiences; held the first-ever Campus Sustainability Summit in May 2019; and ran the Cool Campus Challenge outreach effort for UC Davis (see credit EN-5), which was a major campus-wide engagement effort.

Optional Fields 

Job description (1st position)

Job title of the sustainability officer position:
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Job description for the sustainability officer position:
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Job description for the sustainability officer position:
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Job description (2nd position) 

Job title of the sustainability officer position (2nd position):
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Job description for the sustainability officer position (2nd position):
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Job description for the sustainability officer position (2nd position):
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Job description (3rd position) 

Job title of the sustainability officer position (3rd position):
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Job description for the sustainability officer position (3rd position):
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Job description for the sustainability officer position (3rd position):
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Website URL where information about the institution’s sustainability coordination is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
All in alphabetical order by last name, and by office or unit:

Office of Sustainability:
- Camille Kirk, Director of Sustainability and Campus Sustainability Planner
- Jeannethe Lopez-Guzman, Interim Student Engagement Program Manager
- Kelli O’Day, Assessment Program Manager
- Sue Vang, Engagement and Zero Waste Program Manager

Student Housing and Dining Services Sustainability:
- Skylar Johnson, Sustainability Coordinator
- Jenni Taylor, Sustainability Manager

Facilities Management:
- Amy Burns, Facilities Sustainability Officer

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.