Institutional Commitment
Stan Nosek
Vice Chancellor
for Administration
It’s vital that the sustainability message and mission be embraced far and wide across the UC Davis campus. We administrators can try to set examples and issue directives, but this sort of movement – of acting in the present with an eye on the future – can only succeed if it’s embraced at the grassroots level – and widely so. Sustainability, in short, must be a community effort if it is truly to be sustainable.
That means we must all keep our focus on building bridges between faculty and campus planners, between groundskeepers and students, so that our entire community is banded together for the common goal of a sustainable campus.
I’ve been encouraged by the progress that our campus Sustainability Advisory Committee has made in promoting campuswide sustainability policies and practices for our long-term planning. And I’m especially impressed by the committee's development of strong collaborations with faculty and its efforts to encourage increased student participation through grant funding.
Indeed, I applaud the students at Davis for their sustainability leadership on campus. I’ve said before that at UC Davis, we're not engaging the students – we’re following them. We’re following their lead.
We’re making great strides. Consider:
- The recently opened Gladys Valley Hall, which is the most energy-efficient building on campus (and the second most efficient in the UC system). Previously known as the Veterinary Medicine Instructional Facility, the new building is expected to use one-third less energy than a building of standard design
- We’re creating a campus "green map" that highlights sustainability-oriented locations on campus
- Our new campus sustainability Web site should represent “one-stop shopping” for news, information and events associated with sustainability
- We’re launching a research grant competition for promising student-researchers interested in sustainability
- We’re developing a financing plan for a comprehensive building "renewal" program to make them more energy-efficient, user-friendly and seismically safe
- And we’re increasing sustainable practices in the campus's food services.
But the recipe for sustainability must include you and, to a great extent, the sweat equity you’re willing to invest in this mission. I urge all of us to take on sustainability as a personal passion.