CLAS Carbon Smart and LEED-EB Certification Project
Project Leads: Beth Perry, Jacqueline Sullivan, Dionicia Ramos, McCall Wood
Sponsor: Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS)
TGIF Grant: $5,200 (plus an additional allocation of $4,500)
Project Theme: Energy Conservation & Efficiency
Project Location
2009 Application Submission
Project Description: This project improved the building operations efficiency of the Center for Latin American Studies, as well as CLAS business practices in the areas of energy, water, and waste. CLAS seeks to address 7 of the 10 emissions sources: electricity consumption, natural gas consumption, student commuting, faculty and staff commuting, fugitive emissions-coolants, solid waste, and water use (with steam use, university fleet, and business travel outside our purview) identified by the Cal Climate Action Plan.
Goals: Earn credits towards LEED EB certification by targeting waste generation and management, energy use and performance, and water consumption. Conduct energy, water and waste audits to generate efficiency improvement plans in all three areas. Solicit a professional assessment for a fee to make sure we set the appropriate task list and prioritize them in terms of cost/impact. Following these audits, determine the most energy efficient, cost effective interventions. Our projects will be: energy efficiency (updating lighting; windows; roofing; heating; appliances); water efficiency; waste reduction (improved recycling, composting). The above will require behavior modification efforts. We also will take steps to “green” our public events program (we run nearly 70 public/private events and conferences per academic year). Conduct an open house twice annually to showcase our efforts and welcome students and classes that wish to see our project. By improving efficiency and reducing our carbon output as well as offsetting some of our existing electricity load with a PV system in our unit at UC Berkeley, we aim to be a demonstration unit other educational communities.