2017 Grant Awards

Building Sustainability Curriculum and Learning at Berkeley

Project Description: Our overall objective is to boost climate neutrality and sustainability education at UC Berkeley, especially targeting faculty and students for whom sustainability may not be a focus.

TGIF Award: $19,500

Connie and Kevin Chou Hall Zero Waste Certification

Project Description: In 2017, Haas unveiled its newest building, the Connie & Kevin Chou Hall, an 80,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility dedicated to student learning. The building embodies Haas’s defining principles: Question the Status Quo, Confidence without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself. Designed for LEED Platinum and WELL certifications, Connie & Kevin Chou Hall will also be the first business school building registered to attain Zero Waste certification by Summer 2018.

TGIF Award: $43,050

Elimination of Single-Pass Water Cooling Systems in Support of the UCOP Sustainability Policy

Project Description: In 2017, Haas unveiled its newest building, the Connie & Kevin Chou Hall, an 80,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility dedicated to student learning. The building embodies Haas’s defining principles: Question the Status Quo, Confidence without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself. Designed for LEED Platinum and WELL certifications, Connie & Kevin Chou Hall will also be the first business school building registered to attain Zero Waste certification by Summer 2018.

TGIF Award: $34,282

EPA University Challenge 2017

Project Description:As an extension of the services provided by UCB College of Chemistry's Chemical ReUse Facility (CRF), high quality chemistry & chemical safety information has been compiled into a "Safety Sheet" format that is user-friendly and readily comprehensible to researchers, EH&S professionals, and the graduate & undergraduate students, which is available to those that have access to the CRF searchable database.

TGIF Award: $23,400

Gill Tract Community Farm Student Coalition

Project Description: Our overall objective is to boost climate neutrality and sustainability education at UC Berkeley, especially targeting faculty and students for whom sustainability may not be a focus.

TGIF Award: $34,922

Graduate Assembly Environmental Sustainbility Conference

Project Description: This project is to conduct a one-day environmental and climate science, policy, and advocacy conference for graduate students to engage with these issues in a manner outside their academic focus, building cross-disciplinary skills and collaborative efforts. 

TGIF Award:$10,350

Managed Print Program

Project Description: The Office of Sustainability and Supply Chain Management propose employing 2 student interns to assist with the implementation of the Ricoh Managed Print Solution for the Berkeley campus. Currently UC Berkeley uses over 69,000,000 sheets of paper annually and it is estimated that less than half of the devices on campus are defaulted to double sided printing.

TGIF Award: $9,000

Rainwater Harvesting Program

Project Description:The Rainwater Harvesting Project was founded with the ideals of sustainability and conservation firmly rooted in mind. It aims to address two issues: UC Berkeley mostly uses municipally supplied water that is treated to the standards of drinking water for irrigation, while rainwater from many campus-building rooftops is diverted directly into Strawberry Creek without filtration.

TGIF Award:$24,076

Reducing BearWALK Wait Times and Fuel Emissions

Project Description:Working with ASUC and the Graduate Assembly, UCPD collaborated to enhance BearWALK on the three free campus Night Safety Services. Since BearWALK is a walking service where UCPD student officers walk in between escort requests, feedback showed that clients wanted a reduced wait time. When BearWALK staffing was low (due to employees being a student first and an employee second), UCPD allowed the use of a patrol vehicle. As a way to reduce BearWALK wait times and fuel emissions, the idea of an electric bicycle was proposed so that the BearWALK employee could travel in between escorts faster than on foot (especially from CKC back to Moffitt Library).

TGIF Award: $2,190

Sustainable Menstrual Products for The Cal Community (Discontinued)

Project Description: The idea of free menstrual products on the UC Berkeley campus began with Students for Reproductive Justice (SURJ), who released a survey gauging the support of the campus community for such a project and where accessible locations for menstrual products might be. The project leadership has since shifted to the Office of ASUC Senator Rosa Kwak, who, after meeting with SURJ, elected to restart the project with a 'Reverse' Drive of menstrual products from April 24th to May 5th. Products are located at MCC, GenEq, and the Food Pantry, with follow-up surveys released to students and staff members taking down data in order to assess the impact of the initial program. A flyer demonstrating the environmental impacts of using sustainable products is also provided for students. In the future, the project aims to promote the institutionalization of the provision of menstrual products on campus for students, with the added goal of providing the even more environmentally-friendly cups if financially feasible.

TGIF Award: $2,049

Vermicomposting

Project Description: In efforts to better campus' waste management practices and improve waste-related knowledge and transparency, UC Berkeley affiliates are working towards developing the capacity to process all of campus’ organic waste matter in-house.

TGIF Award: $35,246