Suggestions

Below is a list of suggestions summit attendees put into the suggestion boxes located on the banquet tables throughout the day of the event. These suggestions were sent to the Director of Sustainability, Lisa McNeilly and are now here for the campus community to see and discuss. We would appreciate your feedback very much. If you have suggestions or comments about the summit or about sustainability on campus in general, please e-mail the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Sustainability.

Suggestions for the Campus

  1. Discourage use of stand by option on computers à we need to educate staff on how wasteful this is. I work in a department where most people leave their computers on 24/7 and this is so damaging.
  2. I work in the Hearst building. The cleaning people dump both the trash and recyclables in the trash. Why should we sort recyclables when they end up in the trash anyway? Provide the cleaning people with the resources to recycle.
  3. Discontinue the selling of water in plastic bottles. Discontinue the use of plastic shopping and garbage bags.
  4. Make all campus events (ie Cal Day) sustainable: have compost bins and recycling, limit fliers
  5. Sheet mulch over at least 50% of the campus lawns. Replant with drought tolerant native shrubs which would be better for the habitat and aesthetics on campus.
  6. The campus needs a central mailing list to reduce postage and paper waste for poorly addressed campus and incoming U.S. mail (Mail Services)
  7. Have people subscribe to whatever department newsletters they want to receive – reduce number of newsletters printed and save money and paper. (Mail Services)
  8. Why not more solar on campus?
  9. Don’t leave cars running when giving parking tickets.
  10. This is a wacky idea, but could we generate power on campus from exercise equipment? Also, if someone could invent a replicable exerbike/battery charger unit, I can imagine it catching on as a marketable consumer product.
  11. Free, convenient battery and e-waste recycling for staff, students, and faculty.
  12. We produce conferences, symposiums, meetings, and informal gatherings all of which are very paper intensive. It would be great to have access to inexpensive memory sticks for distribution of “papers” and other material. (UC Berkeley’s Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics).
  13. See that the Regents stop using limousines to travel to and from meetings. Taxi? Shuttle? There are alternatives.
  14. At University Village Albany: Sheet mulch unused lawns. Create compost pile. Plant more native plants.
  15. Extend the sustainable practices of CalDining to all dining options on campus.
  16. According to the WHO/FAO, livestock production accounts for more climate change than transport. The Union of Concerned Scientists have said that after driving less, eating less red meat is the most important thing to do to sop environmental degradation. I was disappointed to see the issue of livestock neglected in the breakout sessions. However, I was happy to see that the lunch was meat free. Reducing beef at campus events and dining centers and replacing it with poultry, fish, or vegetarian options as the default (like turkey burgers) could be an important step.
  17. Recycling should not be overseen by PPCS. They are greatly under funded. People must pay to recycle which does not encourage the habit.
  18. Why not motion-sensor lights in all classrooms and lecture halls?
  19. Install individual light switches for the lamps on the long tables of the North Reading Room in Doe Library, which are all always on, regardless of whether they are needed.

Suggestions for the Summit

  1. The keynote speaker was fantastic. I wish the rest of the day had the same kind of attitude. It would have been great to have that energy at the beginning.
  2. The summit is great.
  3. The breakout sessions seemed to be too broad- next year it would be great if the presentations were more concrete – perhaps instead of three overview presentations they could do one focused and detailed presentation (attended the social justice and energy talk)
  4. The projector and the PA system were not set up properly – when using the same amount of energy to power the equipment but not taking advantage of their full functionality. It was unfortunately a bad example of sustainability….
  5. Great food, good idea to have this event. More handouts with useful websites would be nice.
  6. Excellent summit! My only suggestion is to check sound system in Pauley Ballroom and visual capability in break-out rooms (Stanley??) before presentations began. Thank you1
  7. Great summit, thank you all very much! One criticism: the breakout sessions were not concrete enough. The lacked the substance that I was hoping for. More details, more focus, more something…
  8. It’s impressive that the speaker acknowledged the importance of hard work and sacrifice of activism in its attempts to reform and address corruption and injustice in this University. Next time perhaps he can ask the room to segregate into separate camps. Better, we can move forward in unity.
  9. Please provide an online access to those topics hat were not able to attend in person. You have many concurrent sessions that we would all like to understand.
  10. Perfect the sound system. Encourage participants to bring their own mugs. Use media equipment scaled to audience/ballroom size. Nobody could see small TV screen at back of hall. Provide online equivalents of poster session so posters can be reviewed later.

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