VOLUME 11

January 2010
Bright Green News
The Campus Sustainability Newsletter
IN THIS ISSUE
 The Office of Sustainability
The Office of Sustainability Launches New Website
Launches New Website
The Office of Sustainability has retain these features
 Feb 3rd Sustainability Forum
launched its new website! You can while modernizing the
 Capital Projects is a Green Dept still find us at our same address, design and accessibility
http://sustainability.berkeley.edu/os. of the site. We strived
 TGIF Grant Deadline Reminder to make the new web-
The initial focus of the web team
site as standards-
 UC Berkeley Sustainable Food- was revamping UC Berkeley’s main
compliant and accessi-
services Working Group sustainability website, sustainabil-
bility reader-compatible
ity.berkeley.edu, and the Chancel-
 UC Berkeley Biodiesel Garbage as possible.
Trucks lor’s Advisory Committee on Sus-
tainability website. With the major- We hope that you’ll
 Clark-Kerr Renovation Achieves ity of work on those sites com- join us in welcoming
fied. If you have any comments
LEED Gold pleted last fall, our attention turned our new website by taking a look.
about the site, please e-mail us at
to the redesign of the Office of While you’re there, you can check
 eDissertations sustainability@berkeley.edu.
Sustainability’s own website. out the various projects we have
 Dining Halls Go Trayless initiated to promote green energy
Article by Oscar Zisman
The former incarnation of the Of-
on campus, read reports on Cal’s
 University Extension Sustainabil- fice site -developed by then student
sustainability progress, and even Oscar has been the lead de-
ity Courses associate Christina Oatfield - was signer and technical guru on
learn about getting your depart-
effective in its simplicity and was as the website redesign projects!
 Energy-Saving Bulbs ment or special event green certi-
easy to navigate. We sought to
 Haas Students Win Mushroom
Venture in Global Competition
N o t - t o - M i s s E ve n t : Fe b . 3 rd S u s t a i n a b i l i t y Fo r u m
 Living Green Case Competi-
tion– UCB Students Win At the beginning of each semester, pus. Groups that will be pre-
the Office of Sustainability hosts senting have focuses ranging
 EPA Waste Reduction Video a Sustainability Forum for new and from green renewable energy
Contest
returning students to hear about to volunteer work at Straw-
various environmental campus berry Creek to sustainable
The Office Update groups’ initiatives and how to get food services to greening
involved. buildings.
 Please encourage your friends
and colleagues to join our list The Feb 2010 Sustainability Please join us on Wednes-
serve. Forum will be similar to the first day, Feb 3, 2010, from
Fall forum in which short presenta- 6:00pm-7:30pm, in 2304
 Become a fan of our Facebook tions will be given by various cam- Tolman Hall. Snacks will be
Page! pus environmental organizations, provided and the forum is
while the rest of the time is desig- always open to everyone.
Contact us:
nated for mingling and getting ques-
For a full list of the organiza-
sustainability@berkeley.edu tions answered. The Office of Sus-
tions coming, keep visiting
tainability hosts two sustainability
Meet Our Sustainability the Face book Event and
forums each semester to increase
Team! please RSVP! We’d love to see
collaboration among those inter-
and hear from you! For more info
ested in the environment and the Article by Joanna Young
Check out our website: about the forum, click here.
http://sustainability.berkeley.edu 30+ environmental groups on cam-

C a p i t a l P ro j e c t s i s a G re e n D e p a r t m e n t
Capital Projects (located at 1936 University
Avenue) is the newest green department on
campus!
Part of Facilities Services, the Green Team for
Capital Projects certified 17 points for initia-
tives that include eliminating all CRT monitors,
using 100% post-consumer content copy paper,
making a scanner available
to all employees with
preloaded email ad-
dresses, conducting a
sustainability audit, offer-
ing reusable kitchenware,
recycling batteries, and en-
couraging staff and student to
use less energy and water.
U C B e r ke l ey S u s t a i n a b l e Fo o d S e r v i c e s Wo r k i n g G ro u p
The UCB Sustainable Foodservices Work-
ing Group finalized an plan of action in Decem-
ber and will be working over the next few
months to gather data on sustainable foodservice
practices on campus. The Working Group will
meet 2-3 times this semester, and meetings are
open to interested campus stakeholders.
Biofuel Comes of Age for Campus Recycling and Refuse Fleet
For the last 3 years, Campus Recycling and
Recycling Services (CRRS) has been using
biodiesel fuel in one of its large recycling collec-
tion trucks on a pilot basis. Just recently, all
three of its regular refuse and recycling collec-
tion vehicles were converted to be able to use
biodiesel fuel. Because the blend of biodiesel
CRRS chose to use (50% biodiesel, 50% petro-
diesel) was not fully tested when CRRS first
started using biodiesel - and other local entities
had some difficulty with higher percentages of
biodiesel - CRRS decided to started with one
truck, to make sure the truck performed as well
as it had using only petrodiesel. CRRS has found
Bright Green News
Team Members Left to Right: Judy
Chess, Christine Shaff, Diane Mayo,
Zandra LeDuff, Theresa Cerney, Kath-
leen Kelly. Not shown: Antoinette
Conteh
The next meeting is:
Friday, February 5, 10:30-12:00
Senate Chambers in Eshleman Hall.
More information on sustainable food is available
on the enviro portal and on the Office of Sustain-
ability website.
the blend works very well in its type of truck,
and plans to convert the remaining 3 back up
trucks, as well as its sweeper, in the near future,
as funding permits.
CRRS fuels at Biofuel Oasis, a locally owned
business that supplies waste vegetable oil
(WVO) to a growing population of biodiesel
enthusiasts. The effluent or exhaust from using
biodiesel is less toxic than from petrodiesel, with
the exception of Nitrous Oxide (NOX). CRRS
trucks are outfitted as well with California Air
Resources Board mandated exhaust filters which
further clean the exhaust from our trucks. The
net result to the
campus is far cleaner
air from our indus-
trial collection activi-
ties than with 100%
petrodiesel use.
Biodiesel, especially
when derived from
VOLUME 11 January 2010
TGIF REMINDER
The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF) opened its
2010 grant cycle and is now accepting submissions
for project abstracts. The requirements for apply-
ing for a 2010 grant now require the submission
of an abstract-a short overview of the project-to
be approved by the selection committee prior to
submitting a full grant application.
Final deadline for ALL project abstracts is
February 15th, 2010 at 9am.
Please download and read the guidelines carefully,
and contact tgif_grants@berkeley.edu if you have
any questions.
WVO,
provides
multiple
environ-
mental and
economic
benefits:
recycling
waste oil to make fuel moves towards greater
energy security and independence from foreign
oil sources. Biodiesel is far less toxic in the envi-
ronment than petrodiesel - it is similar in toxicity
to table salt, and biodegrades in the environment
at approximately the same rate as sugar.
If you are around one of CRRS’s trucks, and it
smells like French fries, don’t be surprised - the
oil in the tank might once have been used for
frying them.
Article and Photos by Lisa Bauer,
Manager of CRRS
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C l a r k Ke r r R e n ov a t i o n A c h i eve s L E E D G o l d C e r t i f i c a t i o n
Finished in 2009, Phase 1 of the Clark Kerr Cam-
pus (CKC) renewals project achieves meaningful
outcomes for the community and the earth, mak-
ing the residential building a campus frontrunner
in sustainable renovations and the first project on
campus to achieve gold certification under Lead-
ership in Energy and Environmental Design for
Commercial Interiors (LEED-CI).
Chris Harvey, director of Capital Projects for
Residential & Student Services (RSSP), explains
why the campus has strived to create environ-
mentally responsible buildings for years: “Our
purpose for building sustainable buildings is creat-
ing healthy living and working environments,
conserving natural resources, saving money on
energy and water use, and increasing the aware-
ness of these values through example.”
According to the EIA Building Energy Data Book,
commercial and residential buildings in the United
States account for 42% of primary energy con-
sumption. Constructing green buildings is crucial
not only to reducing energy use but water use,
carbon emissions, and solid waste as well.
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC)
aims to enable environmentally responsible prac-
tices by sponsoring LEED to measure sustainable
performance during a building’s lifecycle. Harvey
acknowledges the importance of USGBC’s role in
certifying green buildings: “LEED awards provide
an opportunity to publicize environmental stew-
ardship. We do not get publicity for the buildings
eDissertations: Dissertations Go Digital
Starting this spring semester,
UC Berkeley doctoral stu-
dents will be submitting their
dissertations electronically.
Students typically submit two
copies of their dissertations,
each of which 300 pages on
average. By going digital, it is
predicted that Berkeley will
save approximately a half-million pages of paper
each year.
Last academic year, Berkeley accepted 856 and
normally accepts 800 to 900 dissertations each
year, a figure that is greater than any other
campus in the US. The switch to electronic
filing will not only save paper, but will save lots
of staff time and shelf space in the Graduate
Bright Green News VOLUME 11 January 2010
the project within budget and schedule and inte-
grating the historical nature of the buildings and
landscape.”
“It feels good knowing the buildings and land-
scape are more energy efficient, accessible, and
safe for everyone who uses them—and what a
difference aesthetically!” Mayo is now engaged
with Phase 2 of the renewal project, which
reaches out to additional buildings at CKC.
Development of the water retention basin on “We’re targeting LEED Gold certification for
CKC’s Building 2-East Side. Phase 2 also,” says Mayo.
we have built that are the equivalent to
LEED certification. It is nice that there is Phase 1 created
more natural
now a tested standard for sustainability.”
interior lighting
Sustainable features of the CKC Renewals at CKC. Building
Project that helped it earn Gold include 3 before & after.
new bike storage rooms to facilitate alter-
native transportation and the addition of
expansive windows in units and common
rooms to encourage the use of natural light-
ing. The contractor, Sundt Construction,
used low-emitting project materials and ac-
complished a 75% diversion rate of construc-
tion waste. The project also features green
roofs, use of “no-mow” grass, and the devel-
opment of a detention basin to store site
water run-off.
Diane Mayo, Facilities Services Associate Learn more about the CKC Project
Project Manager, addressed how the team
Article by Nicole Campbell
worked to “champion (the project) making the
project as sustainable as possible while keeping Photos by Diane Mayo
Degrees Office and library. It seems that
By submitting their work the switch to
online, some graduate digital is
students may be spared sweeping ma-
some relief from engraving jor research
their work into stone and institutions.
being haunted by small UC San Diego
mistakes like a misplaced and San Fran-
page number. cisco have
already
Before the move, dissertations would be stored in
switched to
the campus library and published by ProQuest.
online publication. Stanford students just began
While some Berkeley students have been able to
publishing their dissertations through Google. The
electronically file a copy on ProQuest, most stu-
new eDissertations will allow university research
dents did not. Some students may still choose to
to be accessed by the reaches of the internet.
delay immediate digital publication to two years if
Learn More.
they want to dedicate more time to revising their
work.
Article by Vickie Ly
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U C B D i n i n g H a l l s G o Tr ay l e s s
Spring is a season that usually marks
rebirth or new opportunities. Starting
this spring semester, Crossroads,
Foothill, Clark Kerr, and Café 3 dining
halls will eliminate nearly all of the
plastic trays. Some trays will still be
available in one central location in
each hall for those who need them,
like clients who would use trays for mobility
assistance. Berkeley is the fourth UC to join the
ranks of trayless royalty. Irvine, Riverside, and
UC Berkeley Extension—Expands Sustainability Offerings
Gaining on the momentum of the emerging
global green economy, UC Berkeley
Extension is expanding its sustainability
offerings with a variety of new courses and
two new specialized programs of study this
spring. As the number of green jobs contin-
ues to grow, Extension has the resources
to equip everyone from architects, plan-
ners, and engineers to investors, develop-
ers, and policy makers with the knowledge
and skills necessary to seize these new, loca-
tion-independent work opportunities.
The Professional Program in Solar En-
ergy and Green Building offers a compre-
hensive orientation to the growing solar
industry with an overview of photovoltaic
systems and green building, as well as specific
courses on feasibility studies, system design
and project management, current policies,
and Extension’s popular LEED offerings.
The Professional Program in Leadership
in Sustainability and Environmental
Management provides expertise in imple-
E n e r g y - S av i n g B u l b s
Did you hear about the
federal phase-out of incan-
descent light bulbs? Starting
in 2012, there will be a
federal phase-out starting
with the 100-watt bulb.
While recent surveys show
that 74 percent of Ameri-
cans have tossed their old incandescent bulbs
for energy-saving bulbs in the past year, a
SYLVANIA Socket Survey showed that the
Bright Green News
Santa Cruz have already committed and
UCLA has shown efforts too.
The initiative was originally taken by
students to cut food waste, water and
energy use, and overconsumption. In
October 2009, “Trayless Fridays”
held at Crossroads and Clark Kerr
showed a decrease in food waste by 16
percent. While anticipated savings haven’t been
calculated, there is potential for great savings in
food bought, prepared, served, and wasted. The
menting
cost-
effective
sustainabil-
ity prac-
tices in the
public and
private
sectors, as
well as a set of management tools based on sus-
tainability leadership principles in environmental
law and policy, compliance management systems,
and climate change risk-mitigation strategies.
New sustainability courses at UC Berkeley Exten-
sion include Green Chemistry Policy; Biomimicry:
Engineering Structures by Nature; Intro to Green-
house Gas Management; Climate Change and
Green Building: The Business Case; and SB 375
and Transit-Oriented Development, which ad-
dresses California's sweeping new antisprawl/land
use legislation,. This spring, Extension is also offer-
ing a new public program in green chemistry, led
by Dr. Robert Peoples, director of the American
Chemical Society’s Green Chemistry Institute.
majority were not informed about the new
policy measures and advances in LED tech-
nology. The survey also found that:
 71 percent of homes in the US use
CFLs
 52 percent of consumers consider
price a key factor in choosing
 66 percent of consumers plan to switch to a
new technology light bulb
VOLUME 11 January 2010
reductions would also extend to water and
power use reductions, as well as miles required
to ship waste to be composted. In a New York
Times survey of college campuses, Williams Col-
lege reduced its water usage by 14,000 gallons
after going trayless. The money saved by Berke-
ley’s new moves could be used for improve-
ments to the dining-program, which currently is
25 percent sustainable. Learn More.
Article by Vickie Ly
“It’s exciting to see so many students moving on to
new careers or expanding their areas of expertise
into the new field of clean energy and sustainability,”
says Stephen Chan, director of Extension’s Sustain-
ability Studies department.
Design professional Niki Rivers agrees. Rivers, who
completed the Professional Program in Sustainable
Design last year, interned for the City of San Fran-
cisco Mayor’s Office in its Greening of the Civic
Center project in partnership with Extension. “The
Sustainable Studies program has grown exponentially
just in the past year,” Rivers says. “I consider myself
lucky to [have participated] in such a dynamic and
essential curriculum.”
Find out more about UC Berkeley Exten-
sion’s sustainability courses: http://
extension.berkeley.edu/sustainability/
Attend a free info session:
Green Chemistry & Sustainable Studies
Thurs, Feb. 4 | 7–8:30 pm | 20 Barrows Hall
Still, 13 percent of consumers plan to buy extra
100-watt incandescent bulbs before the phase-out
and 16 percent report that they will switch to a
lower wattage incandescent.
LED lamps are more energy-efficient than incandes-
cent light bulbs even when the energy used during
the manufacturing process is factored into the
equation. Learn More.
Article by Vickie Ly
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H a a s S t u d e n t s W i n i n M u s h ro o m Ve n t u re i n G l o b a l C o m p e t i t i o n
Have you ever thought about what
happens to the coffee grounds used to
brew your morning cup of Joe? While
you may think that they go to waste,
Haas graduates Nikhil Arora and Alejan-
dro Velez had a better idea. Instead of
adding to landfills, they started a com-
pany that uses coffee grounds to grow
gourmet mushrooms. BTTR Ventures
(pronounced “Better”) had the goal to do just as
their name suggests: bring food “Back to the
Roots.”
During their undergraduate career at Berkeley,
Arora and Velez’s entrepreneurial thinking caps
were sparked by a Haas School business ethics
class where they learned that women in Colom-
bia and Africa used waste pulp from coffee plants
to grow mushrooms. The duo thought that this
idea could be used in caffeinated urban centers in
the US. Sure enough, they were right to target
urban areas where coffee drinkers are ubiquitous
and where nutrient rich coffee grounds are
plenty.
BTTR Ventures uses a model that conducts their
G re e n L i v i n g C a s e C o m p e t i t i o n – U C B S t u d e n t s W i n
Last fall, professional services
firm KPMG conducted its first
annual “Living Green Case Com-
petition” in which 43 teams
competed from 6 select universi-
ties. All teams were reviewed by
two KPMG judges and scored on
a 5-point scale in 8 categories.
The top two teams in each re-
gion advanced to National Finals, making 4 out
of the 6 National Finalists teams from UC
Berkeley.
The aforementioned finalists were Berkeley
Consulting who proposed a scalable com-
posting and recycling program for basketball
games at Haas Pavilion in an effort to raise
waste awareness and promote healthy life-
styles, Excelsior who wanted to increase
awareness of carbon emission reduction and
UC Berkeley’s Climate Action Plan through
public display boards and other outreach pro-
grams, Green Life who wanted to promote
sustainable investment practices by educating
and mobilizing students and increasing invest-
ment transparency, and Vitality Consulting
Bright Green News
entire operation lo-
cally. The operation
collects waste from
local coffee shops and
grows mushrooms in
local warehouses.
What is unique about
their process is that
they only use 100
percent coffee ground waste as substrate and do
not use any additional preservatives. Additionally,
they deliver their mushrooms to grocers on the
same day they were harvested. BTTR Ventures
also turns its own post-mushroom coffee
grounds into compost for local farms, such as
City Slicker Farms. They said that they will use
the new grant money to improve the efficiency of
current operations with heavy-duty equipment
and allow them to expand their operations into
other urban markets including Los Angeles.
They received a $5,000 prize from Berkeley’s
2009 Bears Breaking Boundaries Competition to
start off their venture and now supply northern
California Whole Foods Markets with gourmet
who wanted to utilize an interac-
tive website seeking to commit the
university and students to sustain-
able practices that would safeguard
energy and water resources.
Ultimately, two UC Berkeley
teams won and were each given
$1,000 to implement their idea in
addition to receiving cash prizes in
the amounts listed.
National Champion - $3,000
Berkeley Consulting: Cal Green Game Days
UC Berkeley- Lamia Mamoon, Phoebe Peronto,
Deepti Arora, and Anne Widera
1st Runner-up - $2,000
Green Life: Sustainability Investments at Berkeley
UC Berkeley- Fei Ran Yolanda Ma, Lei Xu, and
Yishi Zuo
Congratulations and thanks to the winners and
those who competed!
Article by Joanna Young
VOLUME 11 January 2010
mushrooms. BTTR Ventures produces 400
pounds of oyster mushrooms a week and also
markets self-starting mushroom kits that give
consumers the freedom to grow and harvest up
to a pound of mushrooms a week in their own
home. What is not sold to Whole Foods is
brought to eight Bay Area farmer’s markets.
In 2009, BTTR Ventures won third place for
their innovation in a worldwide competition.
World Challenge 09 is a global competition
sponsored by the BBC and Newsweek that re-
wards projects or small businesses from around
the world that exhibit enterprise and innovation
at a grass-roots level. Arora and Velez received
$10,000 and a spot in the next issue of News-
week. The competition received over 900 sub-
missions, which they narrowed down to 12 final-
ists. Final projects ranged from distributing kero-
sene lamps to those who do not have electricity
to turning waste from markets into organic fer-
tilizer. While the other finalists came from
Europe to Africa, to Indonesia, there was a simi-
lar theme in initiating change on a local level.
Article by Vickie Ly
EPA Waste
Reduction
Video Contest
EPA is hosting a video competition focusing
on waste reduction and consumption where
the grand prize is $2,500!
The theme for the video competition is
"Individual Action in your Community." EPA is
looking for videos that reflect the theme and
are based on one or more of these topics criti-
cal to managing "stuff:" Reducing and Reusing,
Recycling, Composting, Consumption and its
effect on one’s environmental footprint. Any-
one 13 or older can participate by submitting a
30 or 60 second video between December
16th and February 16th 2010 as a video re-
sponse to the EPA promotional video on You-
Tube.
For more information regarding rules and submis-
sion instructions, visit http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/
wycd/video.htm.
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