University of California, Santa Barbara
PRE-2: Points of Distinction

51% of UCSB Undergraduate Students and 25% of UCSB Graduate Students report experiencing food insecurity (https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/student-basic-needs). UCSB Sustainability recognizes that to create a sustainable food system, we must ensure that our students have access to healthy and sustainable food choices. UCSB Sustainability staff help to staff the UCSB Food Security and Basic Needs Taskforce and are an active partner on many basic needs projects and initiatives. The Edible Campus Program (ECP) Student Farm grows food for the Associated Students Food Bank and ECP has also helped to expand community gardens in the Isla Vista area, enabling students greater access to grow their own food. UCSB Sustainability manages a grocery delivery program for students who are quarantined or at higher risk of getting COVID. For this we source food from the Isla Vista Food Cooperative and a local urban garden, Blosser Urban Garden (BUG), to ensure students have access to healthy and nutritious foods. UCSB Sustainability also manages the campus CalFresh program through which students can gain over $200 a month in grocery store benefits. This greatly increases students’ ability to source fresh and local produce.

Through the work and partnership with Facilities Management, Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration (CCBER), and our Landscape and Biotic Environment subcommittee, UC Santa Barbara completed a number of projects in 2019/2020 to increase the Sustainability of our Grounds. These activities include:
- Campus grounds converted blowers, weed whips, hedge trimmers and lawn mowers to battery-powered or plug-in electric equipment in 2020. This switch not only reduces greenhouse gas emissions but helps mitigate workers’ respiratory health issues by reducing the inhalation of exhaust, toxins and dust.
- In 2019/2020 Grounds (includes Design, Facilities and Safety Services (DFSS) and Housing, Dining and Auxiliary Enterprises (HDAE)) and Cheadle Center For Biodiversity & Ecological Restoration (CCBER) continued to replace non-native plants with natives or trees with teaching potential. CCBER eradicated one acre of invasive iceplant on campus point and 3 acres of mustard (Brassica nigra) on South Parcel. DFSS removed 31 hazardous blue gum Eucalyptus trees and replaced them with 31 Lemon-scented gum and Quercus trees.
- UC Santa Barbara was an early adopter of the use of recycled water for landscaping irrigation, 90% of the campus is irrigated with recycled water, therefore augmenting our potable water use. And in 2019/2020 we converted two more segments of campus (Santa Rosa/College of Creative Studies and Santa Catalina/San Joaquin) to recycled water for irrigation.
- In 2019 the Grounds Teams and CCBER worked together to address concerns about the use of Glyphosate as a herbicide through an integrated pest management committee (IPM). The majority of campus landscaping is now maintained without Glyphosate by switching to more hand weeding or finding replacement herbicides. Training and safety has increased as a result of the initiative. The impact includes more tolerance of weeds on campus and increased labor costs.

Through the hard work of our Sustainable Procurement Program Manager in partnership with UCSB Sustainability, and other campus departments, UC Santa Barbara achieved a number of accomplishments in 2019/2020.

Our program kicked off the year by joining SmartWay's Transport Partnership as an Affiliate. EPA's SmartWay Transport Partnership is a market-driven initiative that empowers businesses to move goods in the cleanest, most energy-efficient way possible to protect public health and reduce emissions. UC Santa Barbara also became the second UC campus to sign the Safer Furniture Pledge through the Center for Environmental Health, committing to reducing chemicals of concern through campus furniture purchasing. The pledge demonstrates UCSB’s recognition that flame retardant chemicals, antimicrobial treatments, and fluorinated compounds used as stain/water resistant treatments offer no measurable safety benefits, and that these chemicals, along with PVC and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) including formaldehyde have adverse impacts on public health and the environment.

Procurement completed the addition of Environmental Health & Safety’s Chemical Surplus catalog into our e-Procurement system, Gateway. These surplus chemicals are now searchable to all campus shoppers (the chemicals are available at no cost) who may not be familiar with the program, and who would otherwise be looking to buy new chemicals. Finally, UCSB extended its pilot of a curated shopping platform (https://uc.ecomedes.com/) for users to search products that meet the UC’s Required or Preferred Green criteria in one place, with 240 new users added since July 1st, 2019.