Although the Call for Presentations has closed, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and the 2008 UC/CSU/CCC Sustainability Conference Steering Committee invite you to share your successes in campus operations, administration, teaching, and research through the poster exhibit at this year’s conference. Don't miss your opportunity to inspire campus leaders by sharing your ideas and models of innovative solutions with others throughout the state through this display and digital archive of the event.
We especially encourage posters that relate to the conference theme of Putting Sustainability to Work through policy, broader partnerships and collaborations, and through building a green economy and workforce. Posters are welcomed from any sector of the campus community - students, staff, faculty and administrators in California colleges and universities - and may include their collaborations with other organizations. Posters need to communicate project intent, goals, and results, with clearly outlined methodolgy, metrics, and conclusions in any of the following topical areas.
Individuals or teams are invited to submit posters related to the conference theme. Posters will not be peer reviewed except for conformity to submission guidelines. Time will be scheduled during the conference for presentations by the poster authors in the exhibition area. Poster guidelines will be available soon.
The conference educational session track topics are outlined here. These topics apply to submission categories for posters.
Ecological design requires the ability to comprehend patterns that connect, which means getting beyond the boxes we call disciplines to see things in their ecological context.
—David Orr
This track seeks to highlight examples of how academic and research programs are engaging students, faculty, and staff in issues of global sustainability. Possible topics include: sustainability metrics (e.g., green house gas inventories and carbon footprints), campus internships and community service learning projects, integrating the campus operations and environment as a learning laboratory to provide a few examples.
This track will cover successful best practices in the area of energy efficiency, up and coming technologies being used at California campuses such as renewable energy (wind, solar, wave and biomass) and how to finance and implement energy projects. Additional topics encouraged are: data centers and planning for IT energy needs, building the right design team, energy efficiency for planners, and utilizing the CSU Program for Environmental Responsibility guidelines. Presentations will also address current policies affecting the UC, CSU and CCC systems.
At home I serve the kind of food I know the story behind.
—Michael Pollan
The story of food creates a long series of connections from the farmer to the dining common’s purchasing agent to the student eating their first meal on campus. This track seeks to address some of the many choices campuses have to make from how campuses manage their own land, to making partnerships with farmers, to the operation of the dining commons itself and the involvement of students in all of the above. Within the operational aspect we will explore, topics such as post-consumer composting, green dining certification and setting metrics, and how to finance green products.
This track seeks successful case studies and best practices in green building including certified buildings and building portfolios (e.g., LEED™ NC or Portfolio Program). Financing of green building projects and cost management are also sought.
The unique challenges and successes showing how existing buildings achieve energy efficiency and superior environmental performance are sought for this track, including certified buildings and building portfolios (e.g., LEED™EB, CI, and the Portfolio Program). Additional topics encouraged include: financing measurement and verification processes of building systems, documenting green buildings for certification, and laboratory practices that model sustainability.
This track seeks examples that explore how to move beyond the initial stages of greening a campus and to create structure that will support the continuation of sustainability efforts in the future. Examples in this track, could include how to get high level support for sustainability, how to integrate sustainability across departments and how to put statewide policies into practice.
Through adapting purchasing policies, we can support companies that are moving towards a sustainable and equitable world, and create incentives for businesses to be responsible for the waste stream of their product. We can directly affect the energy use of the building by purchasing Environmentally Preferable Products with Energy Star ratings. This track seeks posters that include all of the above as well as: innovation in packaging, revising purchasing policies to incorporate sustainable targets and miles stones, influencing travel and hotel choices, case studies on selecting the right product and balancing priorities and goals, ensuring high quality reliable standards, and supporting small business to name a few examples.
Students were the drivers behind the CSU Energy, Sustainability, and Physical Plant Management Policy, the UC Policy on Sustainable Practices, and the passing of the Talloires Declaration within the CCC student government. Student Affairs Departments are integrating sustainability into orientation programs, student government resolutions and practices and residential life programs. This track seeks examplary work in any related area outlined above.
This track seeks presentations that will take a broad look at campus transportation systems and the role of the campus in regional planning. Posters may include training for alternative transportation technicians and educational programs, adapting our transit systems to address Assembly Bill (AB) 32 and other recent climate change legislation, inspiring behavioral change, ensuring that the transportation elements of capital projects are followed through on, and funding mechanisms.
Many state agencies and campuses are setting goals for 50% and even zero waste. What will be required to help us implement these ambitious goals? This track seeks posters illustrating what the top campuses in the state are doing to refuse, reduce, buy recycled, reuse and recycle.
This track seeks posters that will address landscaping and agricultural practices especially as they relate to water use. Also included will be presentations on water collection, storm water management and plant selection.
Medical Centers, Nursing Schools and Student Health Facilities have very different challenges when it comes to green building and sustainability. The first priority must be the health of patients. Cleaning chemicals have more stringent guidelines, recycling programs must account for medical waste and ventilation systems need to meet much higher standards. This track seeks posters covering topics outlined above as well as information on DEHP and mercury elimination, inspiring change in a risk adverse environment, green building and design of medical facilities, as well as educating for sustainability.
The green economy has the power to deliver new sources of work, wealth and health to low-income people—while honoring the Earth. If you can do that, you just wiped out a whole bunch of problems. We can make what is good for poor black kids good for the polar bears and good for the country.
—Van Jones
People, Planet, Prosperity. Sustainability relies on the connections between these three vital components of our world. This track seeks posters that will address how we can educate students today for upcoming jobs in the green economy and green research fields and examples of what campuses are doing to address social equity within their sustainability programs. Examples could include: sustainable endowment programs, shifting the culture of the workplace, supporting small local businesses, making green buildings accessible to people of all abilities, increasing accountability of campus services to students, service learning projects, and more. We will also explore why social aspects of sustainability are often taboo to talk about and how to overcome this barrier.
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