STUDENTS FOR A GREENER BERKELEY
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Projects 1. Greening (Your) Campus Building 2. The OSC (One Side Clean) Project 3. Sustainable Investment Campaign 4. Recycled Paper Purchasing Campaign 5. Copy Shop Project |
1. GREENING YOUR CAMPUS BUILDING (see our "HOW TO" Page) The goal of the "Green Your Building" project is to get individuals to identify simple changes that can be done in their campus facility to make it a greener environment, and then implement those changes! After all, simply by walking around the hallway, most of us could identify some simple changes that could make quite a difference. Some ideas include: (1) creating a building recycling web site, (see The Hearst Mining Building Recycling Webpage ) (2) performing a building waste audit, (3) implementing instituting internal bottle/can recycling, (4) creating a building dish station, (5) performing a building energy audit, and many more. This semester, we have three goals that we're looking for some volunteers to help out with: (1) extending the "Green Your Building" project to as many campus facilities as possible, (2) the replication of an energy audit (piloted last semester) of more of our campus buildings, and (3) as always, new suggestions on how to further green your buildings.
2. THE OSC (ONE SIDE CLEAN) PROJECT There is no formal way to re-use paper that still has one side clean to it (OSC). We have designed unique green bins for collection and re-use of this paper. So far we have over 100 bins, though we need help collecting information on the use of the bins, designing posters for education and publicity, and critiquing the bin design. The overall goal is to collect enough information and put together a grant request that would enable this project to go UC system wide, and further. See our OSC page for more information.
3. Sustainable Investment Campaign With an endowment near $1 billion, the UC Berkeley Foundation faces an enormous opportunity to leverage its financial resources to effect positive social and environmental change. Members of SGB, the Graduate Assembly (GA), and others have formed a group called the Berkeley Sustainable Investing Collaborative (BSIC) that is working with the university administration and the Trustees of the UC Berkeley Foundation to explore ways in which sustainability and social responsibility can be incorporated into our endowment's investment decisions. Additionally, BSIC is working with the ASUC to transfer its bank accounts to a community bank that makes loans to low-income members of our local community.
4. RECYCLED PAPER PURCHASING CAMPAIGN The goal of this project is to dramatically increase the amount of recycled content (RC) paper purchased on campus. The last time data was collected (2002-03), only 9% of paper purchased at UCB contained recycled content (see report), which was the worst among all of the UC schools! We are in the process of surveying individual departments as well as suppliers to gather data on what is currently being purchased, in order to make a convincing argument to campus administrators for why more emphasis should be placed on RC paper. We are also working with the purchasing department to renegotiate prices for RC paper with the campus suppliers. As a pilot project, we will be working to get the entire College of Engineering purchasing RC paper. There are many ways you can get involved with this project, from small one-time commitments to helping plan our strategy. Some specific tasks are: - surveying a department about their purchasing behavior (15-20 minutes) - convincing your own department or research group to purchase RC paper (we have a factsheet with compelling arguments for making the switch) - joining in our meeting with officials from the campus purchasing department or the College of Engineering
5. COPY SHOP PROJECT For the past year, SGB has been working with campus officials to ‘green’ Berkeley’s purchasing practices; in particular, the group has been endorsing a campus-wide mandate on purchasing recycled content paper. However, another important component of Berkeley’s paper-use-footprint occurs off campus at the local copy shops via the purchase of course readers and other photocopies. Thus SGB is launching a project to work with local copiers to: (1) Encourage them to switch to recycled content paper, and (2) To find a productive end-use for their one-side-clean paper, such as donating it to local schools or to Berkeley’s Reuse. We will be working directly with local copy shops and also, to enhance the incentive for shops to engage in this effort, with departments on campus to negotiate agreements to conduct business with copiers who utilize ‘green’ paper practices.
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Meeting Schedule: Spring 09 Meetings: 1/29 at 7:30pm *Check News Update on the home page for location changes Executive Comittee Meetings: TBA T SHIRTS ARE HERE! Please support the greening of UC Berkeley!
The T's are American Apparel's Sustainable
Edition, soft, unbleached organic cotton, and printed with non-toxic
water based ink. No
Sweatshops. (S, M, L, XL) $12.
 Photo Courtesy of Judith Foster |
