Committee on Sustainability and Stewardship (CSS) Updates

Attendees: Alex Jones, April Exner, Dan Blunk, Dean Fitch, Lacey Raak, Shauna Casey, John Barnes, CISR, Tim Galarneau, Lily Urman, Tony Grant, Natalie Tran, Lucia Calderon, Don Calerdine, Andrea Hesse, Kevin Bell, Scott Berlin, Sarah Orlick, Parker Welch, Aaron Cole

Awareness Education Engagement 

• The Learning Living Lab map is almost completed! 

Facilities & Buildings

• LEED GA training held April 11 (25 attendees)
• Haybarn will be silver 

Land, Habitat, Watershed

• Recently conducted 16 field trips with over 300 students
• Working on grassland monitoring project; Sustainability Office funded project provides 2 student birders to develop a monitoring program to monitor 8 specific grassland bird species experiencing significant decline, expanded to nearby preserves
• Working on Ohlone Tiger Beetle protection signage based on research by Tim Duane and grad student  

Procurement

• Provost's Sustainability Internship student completed project- environmentally preferred office supply “favorites” list
• Creating financial affairs sustainability web page 

Transportation

• 400 students participated in first Walk to Class challenge day, which will be growing next year 

Waste

• Compost Feasibility almost complete, looking at grants to help fund infrastructure 

Water

• Currently under water restrictions, Sustainability Office will be hiring Water Action Team 

Student Environmental Center

• Drop Your Own Drip Campaign presentations/training, Student Organic Solutions Campaign, Green Building Campaign- Self-sustaining Greenhouse 

Food

• FSWG updating Campus Food & Garden Guide
• Quarterly Meeting- expanded discussion of what “food” means in the Santa Cruz Community
• President’s Food Initiative- 
• Alice Waters initiative UC Food movement
• UCOP/President responded with initiative
• Dan Press is UCSC Campus Liaison for the initiative
• Developing short and long-term goals
• UCSC is a bastion for agro-ecology so we should be a lead in advancing agro-ecology & food justice issues across CA
• How can we support being a lead and develop/share best practices?
• Farm Institution emphasis
• Unfunded mandate- unclear to what extent funding will be earmarked for this initiative