University of California, Riverside
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

Sustainability Seminar Series:

- The Office of Sustainability hosts Sustainability Lecture Series with a recent lecture series being on April 30, 2019. This lecture series discussed UC’s innovative approach to carbon offset procurement, which prioritizes high-quality offsets that directly contribute to UC’s mission of research, education, and public service. https://sustainability.ucr.edu/event-list/2019/04/30/sustainability-lecture-series-carbon-offsets-history-programs-projects-and

Gender & Sexuality Studies Department offers an internship program for students to engage with community and campus partners. The program has placed students within the following organizations, departments, and initiatives from the years 2017-2020:

- UCR Office of Sustainability: The Office of Sustainability hosted a student intern to assist with Earth Week planning and implementation. UCR hosted events during the week of Earth Day, which included, but were not limited to, workshops, fairs, lectures, and information sessions.

Carbon Neutrality Initiative:

- 2017 CNI Student Engagement Fellow – Drew Story: Drew will be working on setting up an Eco-Ambassadors program to educate his peers about climate change and sustainability and to work in developing carbon mitigation programs for laboratories and classrooms. Drew Story will be the official ambassador for the UCR CNI Fellows.

- 2017 CNI Fellow - Maiko Le Lay: Maiko will develop a climate change and sustainability literacy peer to peer program for graduate students in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

- 2017 CNI Fellow – Miriam Fadel: Miriam will develop a climate change and sustainability literacy peer to peer program for undergraduate students in the School of Public Policy and the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

- 2017 CNI Student Engagement Fellow – Peter Byrley: Peter will be working on setting up an Eco-Ambassadors program to educate his peers about climate change and sustainability and to work in developing carbon mitigation programs for laboratories and classrooms. Peter will work as the graduate student liaison developing a sustainability committee within the Graduate Student Association to lead behavioral change among graduate students to help achieve carbon neutrality at UC.

- 2018 CNI Fellow – Fabian Villalobos: Fabian’s project will focus on the study of commercial cooking emissions on campus and investigation into constructing rooftop gardens onto pre-existing buildings around campus. He wants to start an awareness campaign near campus restaurants that will educate students about the environmental effects of commercial cooking of meat.

- 2018 CNI Student Engagement Fellow – Drew Story: As a CNI Student Engagement Fellow, Drew wants to support and equip students to take more ownership of sustainability at UCR and foster collaboration between CNI and GFI.

- 2018 CNI Fellow - Maiko Le Lay: Maiko’s project–"Bringing STEM & Humanities for Cross Campus Collaboration on Sustainability & Zero-Waste"–aims to formalize the zero-waste group and help promote the group to graduate students from various disciplines at UCR through a zero-waste workshop series, open forums, cooking advice, and zero-waste tips. Maiko will continue to advocate for diversity in sustainability as she works to bridge the STEM and the Humanities for better cross campus collaboration.

- 2018 CNI Fellow – Elizabeth Deyett: Elizabeth’s project seeks to educate and establish communication on campus via monthly open public forums on sustainability in order to give sustainability a centralized location and voice within UCR. Through her experience with planning Earth Day she found that there are various groups who each have sustainability interests, but each group is small and focused on different sections. Elizabeth wants to unify the like-minded individuals by building a network that will be able to lobby administration and promote carbon neutrality projects on campus.

- 2019 CNI Fellow - Nami Davoodzadeh: Nami’s project will establish a free smartphone application titled "UCR Green M@pp" which will map out every sustainable structure/practice/infrastructure on campus such as recycling bins, compostable bins, food left over after events, etc. This project will seek to solve the problem to make sustainable structures at UCR more visible and available to the larger public across campus.

- 2019 CNI Student Engagement Fellow - Maiko Le Lay: These past two years as CNI fellow, I realized that 1) CNI fellows ‘s efforts were not made visible enough to the UCR campus community and sustainability stakeholders, 2) that CNIs’ projects were disconnected from existing undergraduate and graduate Carbon Neutrality research, and sustainability efforts addressed notably by Inland Empire’s Indigenous communities, various UCR cultural centers and 3) that there is exist no sustainable infrastructures or mechanism to document and track UCR CNI’s projects, efforts, accomplishments, and challenges. My plan is to: 1) Implement a multilevel peer-mentorship program inspired by the existing UCR Grad Success mentorship program where faculty and graduate students mentor incoming graduate students. I would like to implement archiving and tracking processes through the peer-mentorship group and enable more cross-campus collaborations, increase visibility of sustainable practices and projects on campus, and diversify the field of sustainability by including various stakeholders from students, to faculty, to staff, to administration. 2) Make CNI fellows be more recognized for their efforts as Carbon Neutrality ambassadors at UCR. I would like to make sure CNI’s departments’ chair, college Deans, and the Chancellor are aware of their work and impact on campus by creating opportunities for them to meet and for their projects to be featured in UCR news platforms and increase their visibility. 3) Connect our work to existing sustainability-related work at UCR. In sum, I would like to implement archiving and tracking processes through the peer-mentorship group and enable more cross-campus collaborations, increase visibility of sustainable practices and projects on campus, and diversify the field of sustainability by including various stakeholders from students, to faculty, to staff, to administration.

- 2020 CNI Student Engagement Fellow - Oscar Corona: Students selected to serve as the campus CNI Student Engagement Fellow will work with their campus sustainability office and staff to communicate about campus and UC‐wide sustainability goals and programs, to assess existing programs and efforts, and to engage undergraduate and graduate students in those efforts. In addition, engagement and communication efforts should enable and empower students to provide feedback about campus and UC‐wide sustainability programs.

https://ucop.edu/carbon-neutrality-initiative/cni-fellows/2020-cni-fellows/index.html#riverside
https://sustainability.ucr.edu/carbon-neutrality-initiative-cni#ucr_cni_fellows

2019 Riverside Green Summit: This is an opportunity to highlight, discuss and showcase actions towards environmental health of the Riverside community. The event is an opportunity to experience the Riverside community collaborate, educate and showcase transformative actions in Sustainable Transportation, Food & Working Landscapes, Green Buildings & Homes and Resource Conservation. The environmental health of our community requires action! Only through sustainable efforts and ‘green’ practices can we all contribute to a better Riverside. This can be realized through education of our citizenry, provision of solid information, best practices and opportunities to make a difference. The City of Riverside and the University of California- Riverside are partnering to bring the community a fun-filled day focused on sustainability and achieving these objectives.

CNI Engagement Fellow Alondra Martinez currently works with the UCR Office of Sustainability to manage create and facilitate social media campaigns. She also hosts monthly social media livestreams to discuss sustainability topics with members of the public. Her efforts engage the public with UCR’s sustainability practices and updates.
https://ucop.edu/carbon-neutrality-initiative/cni-fellows/2020-cni-fellows/index.html#riverside
https://sustainability.ucr.edu/carbon-neutrality-initiative-cni#ucr_cni_fellows

Community Public Talks

-Riverside Astronomical Society (06/29/2019) - “A Planet in Transition: The -Astrophysics of Climate Change”

-Cosmic Thursdays (08/22/2019) - “A Planet in Transition: The Astrophysics of --Climate Change”

Traffic and Air Pollution Study:
Researchers, using wind sensors and air samplers, are measuring how roadside barriers such as sound walls might reduce the impact from pollutants discharged by cars and trucks traveling on the freeway. UCR’s proximity to the 215 freeway made it an ideal candidate for the study. https://insideucr.ucr.edu/stories/2019/08/21/whats-boxes-and-towers-campus-parking-lots

Mapping Meters and Collecting Data:

- Mapping existing campus meters and collecting data on building systems. Examining opportunities for improving sustainability within our buildings (for ex. water, electricity, hvac, energy efficiency retrofit projects). Student interns worked with the Energy Management Office within Facilities Services to begin this process. Contact: Energy Manager

Carbon Neutrality Initiative:

- CNI Climate Action Graduate Fellow - Milad Izadi; Project Title: Addressing the Challenges of Photovoltaic in Power Electric Grids
Project Description: Among the U.S. states, California remains the undisputed leader when it comes to solar power in the U.S., with almost 23 GW of installed solar panels. Also, nearly 17 percent of California’s electricity comes from solar energy. Also, a number of large solar farms are located across California. Many universities in California have installed solar panels, i.e., photovoltaic (PV), in open spaces like rooftops and parking lots that are perfect for solar energy projects. University of Californian Riverside (UCR), as one of the pioneers in integrating solar energy in the electricity system, installed the largest solar site with 3.3 MW generation in 2014 and its current generation capacity is about 7.3 megawatt (MW). Also, UCR set up more than 9,600 solar panels in two campus parking lots in 2017 with about 4.3 MW capacity that put UCR in the number two spot at the UC system for on-site renewable energy.
The Smart Grid Research Group (SGRG) at UCR is researching in the area of renewable energy electricity infrastructure and received a huge grant from the Department of Energy (DoE), National Science Foundation (NSF), and California Energy Commission (CEC). The main purpose of the SGRG is to develop optimization-based techniques in power electric systems with focus on sensing, controls, and operation. The main challenge in utilizing solar panels is to optimally schedule the operation of PVs under different conditions of the electric grid and different solar irradiation conditions in order to deliver the green electrical services with high level of reliability and appropriate service quality. We are further looking for developing novel methods in company with the existing ones to enhance the efficiency of PV systems.
https://ucop.edu/carbon-neutrality-initiative/cni-fellows/2020-cni-fellows/index.html#riverside
https://sustainability.ucr.edu/carbon-neutrality-initiative-cni#ucr_cni_fellows

The Bending the Curve course offered at UC Riverside focuses on a student projects that are campus based. This course features the leading climate scientist from across the UC system in a series of high quality lectures that can be offered at any UC. One of the student research projects for the Spring of 2019 was to study decreasing electricity and natural gas usage on campus through working with the Office of Sustainability and the Energy Manager in Facilities Services.
Contact: Director of Academic Sustainability

Energy Efficiency Project Evaluation for Central Plant: This is a project funded by the CNI and GCLC groups, this study brought in researchers from the Winston Chung Global Energy Center to study energy efficiency projects at the campus Central Plant, the largest driver for on campus emission generation. They worked closely with the campus Energy Manager to understand the inner workings of the Central Plant, and to evaluate the best areas for improvement and measurement.
Contact: Energy Manager

Carbon Neutrality Initiative:

- 2019 CNI Fellow – Enrique Roman Jr.: Enrique will implement a proof-of-concept demonstration project for an anaerobic biodigester at the UCR R’Garden that will utilize plant detritus and food waste from campus to produce biogas, a renewable and reliable source of energy, into electricity.

- 2019 CNI Fellow – Mohammad Farajollahi: Mohammad will be working on the management of solar panels installed at two campus parking lots in UC Riverside. The project consists of research, development, demonstration and deployment activities to address the issues associated with widespread usage of clean solar energy technologies across electricity distribution grids. This project will help UC move closer to our CNI goals by providing clean electricity generated by the solar panels, which can be counted as an alternative source of energy instead of polluting energy produced by fossil fuels.

- 2020 CNI Fellow – Celeste Geary: Celeste will create a closed-loop composting system through student involvement. Multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals will be implemented through this project. Precious and vital nutrients from students’ organic materials will return to the soil of the R’Garden to ensure soil health. While the materials are composting, we will collect the biofuel generated and use it to heat spaces and/or water on campus.

- 2020 CNI Fellow – Jubair Yusuf: Jubair will explore the Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEVs) related research opportunities and enhance the scope to engage more electric vehicles in UCR campus. The optimal charging strategy also needs to be ensured to make the most use of PEVs. PEV deployment will shift the paradigm of typical fossil fuel energy usage to green energy involvement. As a result, it will reduce the carbon emission and help to reach UC CNI goal.

Gender & Sexuality Studies Department offers an internship program for students to engage with community and campus partners. The program has placed students within the following organizations, departments, and initiatives from the years 2017-2020:

- GRID Alternatives: GRID Alternatives envisions a rapid, equitable transition to a world powered by renewable energy that benefits everyone. Our mission is to build community-powered solutions to advance economic and environmental justice through renewable energy.
https://ucop.edu/carbon-neutrality-initiative/cni-fellows/2020-cni-fellows/index.html#riverside
https://sustainability.ucr.edu/carbon-neutrality-initiative-cni#ucr_cni_fellows

R'Course program is that support students’ efforts to develop leadership skills, to innovate the undergraduate curriculum, and to promote democratic, experiential education on campus. Students from any undergraduate degree program at UCR are invited to design and lead their own original courses. The R'Courses related to Food & Dining sustainability in the last three years are:

- R'Course: Urban Gardening (NASC 198): The Urban Garden Seminar is a student-led seminar that will give students a deeper understanding of our food system using an interdisciplinary, participatory and experiential framework. These sessions will focus on analyzing the influences, powers, and implications of our environment using both theory and practice. Together we will explore new ideas and methods that promote healthier inter-generational community engagement while discussing a topic that touches us all through a feminist lens. Class activities will include guest speakers/facilitators, dialogue, fieldwork, and service learning at the university and the local community.

Gender & Sexuality Studies Department offers an internship program for students to engage with community and campus partners. The program has placed students within the following organizations, departments, and initiatives from the years 2017-2020:
- California Agriculture and Food Enterprise (CAFE): The University of California’s (UCR’s) California Agriculture and Food Enterprise (CAFÉ) is a research catalyst initiative facilitating the integrative, multidisciplinary study of complex issues associated with agriculture, food and sustainability for the betterment of the health and well-being of humanity and the planet. https://cafe.ucr.edu/

- UCR R’Garden: The R'Garden is a space that grows fresh produce while providing an opportunity to learn about social, environmental, and economic sustainability through a food systems. We are a student resource center as well as a community centered garden which aims to educate folks on the local food systems in Riverside, while actively engaging folks on the importance of having access to local & fresh produce. It serves as a sustainability hub to promote service learning, and community-based research around food systems through student-led projects and collaborations with the campus and community.
https://rgarden.ucr.edu/

- A GSST student also helped measure the amount of waste generated by our campus food facilities. Contact: Associate Director of Academic Sustainability

The UCR Tree Survey in 2019-2020 collected about 1,309 trees. A UCR Botany student worked with Grounds to accomplish this.
https://ucrgis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=e6d820a13d4e48778a091b1798319b51

Carbon Neutrality Initiative:

- 2019 CNI Fellow - Nami Davoodzadeh: Nami’s project will establish a free smartphone application titled "UCR Green M@pp" which will map out every sustainable structure/practice/infrastructure on campus such as recycling bins, compostable bins, food left over after events, etc. This project will seek to solve the problem to make sustainable structures at UCR more visible and available to the larger public across campus.

- Developing a strategy for metering water use and landscape and grounds. Working with student interns, the Energy Manager, has been developing a strategy for placing more meters to track water use more efficiently and in a targeted manner. This is the first and essential part of any efficiency program and provides students with the opportunity to understand campus water use and tracking. Contact: Energy Manager
https://ucop.edu/carbon-neutrality-initiative/cni-fellows/2020-cni-fellows/index.html#riverside
https://sustainability.ucr.edu/carbon-neutrality-initiative-cni#ucr_cni_fellows

Fair Trade Fair
- UC Riverside hosted a Fair Trade Fair where attendees were able to speak to fellow students about what it means to be a Fair Trade campus and browse through fair trade products from local vendors. The Fair Trade Club continues these efforts to track Fair Trade purchases at UCR. Fair Trade is about endorsing an economic system that provides opportunities for international farmers, artisans and workers to lift themselves out of poverty. The purpose of this organization shall be to spearhead the campaign to make and maintain UCR as a Fair Trade Campus. This entails educating students about their purchasing power through events, news coverage, and workshops as well as collaborating with other departments to pass a campus Fair Trade resolution.

https://sustainability.ucr.edu/event-list/2019/05/29/ucr-fair-trade-festival

https://highlanderlink.ucr.edu/organization/fairtrade

Student project conducting a electric vehicle infrastructure analysis for the campus of UCR as part of the Bending the Curve climate change course.
Contact: Matthew Barth - Professor & Faculty Director of Sustainability

Student project studying the UCR commuting pattern analysis including vehicle activity data collection, as part of the Bending the Curve climate change course.
Contact: Director of Academic Sustainability

Carbon Neutrality Initiative:

- 2020 CNI Student Fellow – Jubair Yusuf: Jubair will explore the Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEVs) related research opportunities and enhance the scope to engage more electric vehicles in UCR campus. The optimal charging strategy also needs to be ensured to make the most use of PEVs. PEV deployment will shift the paradigm of typical fossil fuel energy usage to green energy involvement. As a result, it will reduce the carbon emission and help to reach UC CNI goal.

- The Alternative Transportation Survey 2020 was created and facilitated by CNI Student Fellow Oscar Corona. The purpose of the survey is to use the information we gather to have a better idea of what our campus is thinking in order to create better initiatives that encourage alternative transportation usage as well as fulfilling the campus' needs.
https://sustainability.ucr.edu/alternative-transportation-survey-2020
https://ucop.edu/carbon-neutrality-initiative/cni-fellows/2020-cni-fellows/index.html#riverside
https://sustainability.ucr.edu/carbon-neutrality-initiative-cni#ucr_cni_fellows

Sustainability major internship (GSST 0198):
- Quantifying the rate of use of single-use plastics from private food vendors on campus. Explored ways to decrease use through volunteer efforts, policy changes, and changes to contracts.

CNI project on vermicomposting in collaboration with the R’Garden
Contact: The Office of Sustainability

Carbon Neutrality Initiative:

- 2019 CNI Fellow – Enrique Roman Jr.: Enrique will implement a proof-of-concept demonstration project for an anaerobic biodigester at the UCR R’Garden that will utilize plant detritus and food waste from campus to produce biogas, a renewable and reliable source of energy, into electricity.

- 2019 CNI Fellow - Nami Davoodzadeh: Nami’s project will establish a free smartphone application titled "UCR Green M@pp" which will map out every sustainable structure/practice/infrastructure on campus such as recycling bins, compostable bins, food left over after events, etc. This project will seek to solve the problem to make sustainable structures at UCR more visible and available to the larger public across campus.

- 2020 CNI Fellow – Celeste Geary: Celeste will create a closed-loop composting system through student involvement. Multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals will be implemented through this project. Precious and vital nutrients from students’ organic materials will return to the soil of the R’Garden to ensure soil health. While the materials are composting, we will collect the biofuel generated and use it to heat spaces and/or water on campus.
https://ucop.edu/carbon-neutrality-initiative/cni-fellows/2020-cni-fellows/index.html#riverside
https://sustainability.ucr.edu/carbon-neutrality-initiative-cni#ucr_cni_fellows

The Coffee Grinds Project is small and growing project to compost coffee grinds in office buildings throughout the UCR campus offices. Coffee grinds and compost run to garden (student projects)

UCR’s Healthy Campus Initiative involves students in their aims to provide access to tap water through installation of tap water bottle refillers, hydration stations and water access signage and conduct a campus assessment of the beverage environment and stakeholder engagement, and launch efforts to understand the ability to create or expand Healthy Beverage Zones.

Gender & Sexuality Studies Department offers an internship program for students to engage with community and campus partners. The program has placed students within the following organizations, departments, and initiatives from the years 2017-2020:
- Inland Empire Utilities Agency, A Municipal Water District: IEUA is committed to investing in our water supply for today and tomorrow through fiscal responsibility, efficient business practices, water supply management, and environmental stewardship. They created and shared information that was learned to the campus community. https://www.ieua.org/

Green Campus Action Plan is a three part initiative by the undergraduate students of UC Riverside to help reduce the campus’ environmental impact and increase student empowerment. The Green Campus Action Plan gives out grants to organizations and projects that have a clear environmentally defined measurable outcome as defined in GCAP referendum. GCAP also offers internships through the Office of Sustainability.
http://asucr.ucr.edu/programs-services/gcap/about-gcap/

Students participation in the campus 2019 Long Range Development Plan.
Contact: Fortino Morales -- Sustainability Officer

Michelle Baron (Graduate Student Staff) gathered and analyzed data for a sustainability report and STARS submission. Chelsea Lee (Graduate Student Staff) and Madison Reichhold (Student Staff) from the Office of Sustainability participated in the collection of AASHE STARS data and review respectively.
Contact: Michelle Baron -- Office of Sustainability Intern

As part of GSST internship course, students participated in analyzing gender diversity through a snapshot in UCR class offerings.
Contact: GSST Department

Environmental Justice Subcommittee – includes participation from students from various campus groups and departments that are interested in integrating environmental justice concerns with campus sustainability efforts. As part of a recent GSST course, an environmental justice story map on ArcGIS was created to highlight local environmental justice concerns and perspectives.

From UCR’s CalPIRG chapter: The California Air Resources Board is planning on voting on a proposal for 100% electric buses in California by 2040 and we are working to show student support for a YES vote on 100% electric buses in California. We are working to get our campuses to commit to 100% renewable energy with a new focus on getting campuses to commit to having 100% electric bus fleets by 2030. We are also working with our surrounding cities and school districts to make commitments for 100% electric buses by 2030. We are showing support from students, faculty, and parents, as well as meeting with administrators and elected officials to make 100% clean energy commitments.
Contact: Fortino Morales -- Sustainability Officer

Healthy Campus Initiative student grant to increase awareness of health benefits of cycling though a #ucrbikes social media campaign as part of a collaboration between the Transportation and Parking Services, Outdoor Excursions, Carbon Neutrality Initiative Student Fellow, and Office of Sustainability.

The Healthy Campus Initiative funded the Mindfulness-Based Sustainability Project which was a three-day workshop during the week of Earth Day. The workshop was intended to show that there are mindful ways of recycling, consuming, and eating that directly and positively affect sustainability and encourage positive decisions towards a more sustainable future.
http://healthycampus.ucr.acsitefactory.com/sites/g/files/rcwecm2766/files/2019-10/hc-project-grants-funded-to-date.pdf

Credit prepared by Michelle Baron and revised by Chelsea Lee.