The Beach Wins Big at the California Higher Education Sustainability Conference

Once again, The Beach was a standout campus at this year’s 16th annual California Higher Education Sustainability Conference (CHESC) at UC Santa Barbara in July. CSULB students, staff, faculty, and campus partners attended the conference to soak up the latest sustainability tips and trends from our peer institutions as well as to present on the university’s three award-winning projects. CSULB took home three best practice awards this year in the categories of “Sustainable Food Service,” “Partnerships, Communications, and Planning,” and “Overall Sustainable Design.”

 

The (outgoing) ASI Recycling Coordinator Eric Bryan and Hospitality Management Professor Dr. Libby Gustin teamed up to present a session titled “Turning Food Waste into Food Justice.” Their presentation focused on the successful collaboration between ASI’s Grow Beach Campus garden and the Hospitality Management program’s Exploring a Sustainable Food System course (HM 370). In addition to providing students with hands-on opportunities to learn about healthy, sustainable food and food systems, this collaborative project was recognized with a best practice award due to ASI and the university’s continual efforts to address students’ food security. For example, much of the produce grown at Grow Beach is donated to the ASI Beach Pantry, the Beat Bites program helps to distribute surplus food from campus events to students in need, and the CalFresh program actively engages students to ensure they are able to access benefits available to them.

 

Energy and Utility Manager Shawn Cun presented alongside counterparts from CSU Northridge and CSU East Bay during a session titled “Long Term Climate Action Plans for Carbon Neutrality.” Cun shared information about the university’s best practice winning approach to developing a Clean Energy Master Plan (CEMP). This plan was designed to provide a strategic roadmap for reducing energy related and overall campus emissions to zero by the target year of 2030.  The CEMP project was a wholistic carbon emission reduction planning exercise address all major sources of Scope 1 & 2 emissions and is intended to provide the data, resources, and tools for the campus to continually iterate our approach towards reducing emissions as energy markets and technology evolves. 

 

"The University’s Climate Action Plan helps to identify where there are opportunities to reduce both utility costs and GHG emissions.  It is an exciting time to be involved on working towards a solution for climate change, especially with all the advancements in green energy over the last decade,"said Shawn. 

 

Energy Analyst Gordon Stewart from Glumac, the lead consulting firm on the project, was also on hand to answer questions and present on the plan’s creation. It was Cun’s first time attending the conference and he was pleased to see that there was so much interest in the session. 

 

Best practices in green building was the focus of the session presented by Lisa Salgado and Martin Grant from CSULB’s Design and Construction Services department. This session highlighted not one but two recent green building projects at The Beach: the new College of Continuing and International Education (CPIE) building and the renovated Student Success Center (SSC). The CPIE building was recognized with the award for Overall Sustainable Design for achieving the highest green building certification of LEED Platinum as well as having the distinction of being the first net-zero source energy classroom building in the CSU. The Student Success Center did not receive an award but was still chosen by conference organizers to be highlighted for the exemplary approach to renovating an existing building to the highest standards of sustainability and design. Project partners Amanda Snelson and Aravind Batra from ZGF Architects and P2S Engineering respectively co-presented as well.

 

In addition to the opportunity to win recognition, CHESC attendees also benefit from the chance to network and connect with the larger, higher-education sustainability community and green-minded businesses and organizations. Exhibitors this year included The Better Food Foundation, Klean Kanteen, and Clean River, who were showcasing the exterior dome top bins that will be deployed campus-wide at CSULB this year.

 

“This is my second year attending CHESC and it was a completely different experience. It was great to be able to reconnect with folks I met last year and hear about the completion of projects that we discussed at last year’s CHESC. Every year is an opportunity to learn from others’ successes and challenges in a tight-knit setting.” said Lilian Ledesma, Sustainability Program Specialist. 

 

As the exhibitor hall of over 75 sustainable vendors began to pack up and attendees exchanged their final business cards amongst each other, one can’t help but wonder what great ideas were sparked over the 3-day conference. From zero waste programs to green buildings, CHESC covered every topic possible so that attendees could go back to their home institutions feeling refreshed, inspired and more importantly, motivated to continue fighting the fight to more sustainable campuses.