Dashboard | Office Of Sustainability

Interactive Dashboard coming in Spring 2018!

Energy

Alternative Energy: Through a joint venture with Southern California Edison, CSUSB built a 1.4 MW molten carbonate fuel cell power plant is integrated into the campus’s central plant. The fuel cell generates electricity to the utility grid with waste heat to the campus at no cost to the university…resulting in a $120,000 savings in gas expense.
Efficiency: The Central Plant is currently undergoing conversion to low temp hot water system. Tied to the Fuel Cell plant this conversion will allow us to utilize even more of the waste heat generated. The project should be complete in Fall/Winter 2017 and is estimated to save an additional 141,299 therms per year...enough to supply 353 Southern California homes for a year!
Solar: 3.5-acre photovoltaic ground-mounted solar array generates 750 kilowatts of electrical power...enough to power 108 houses a day!
Lighting: Exterior lighting has been retrofitted to LED fixtures with integrated adaptive, wireless controls.
Community: The San Bernardino Recreation Center has 20 elliptical fitness machines designed to produce about 100 watts of power of hour.
Controls: The Utility Infrastructure Project (Phase III) is currently underway and will retrofit some of the campus utility meters to “smart meters”. Along with this an Energy Information System (EIS) is slated for FY 17/18 to improve our tracking and reporting of energy consumption across campus.

Xeriscape: With a stroll down Coyote Walk and to our Water Conservation Garden you can find several Xeriscape (no water landscape) examples that demonstrate how water-saving green design can be beautiful too.
Fixtures: Through a strong comment across various retrofit projects much of the campus has low flow faucets, toilets, and showerheads in place resulting in millions of gallons of water saved over the life of the fixtures.

Recycling: 150 recycle bins were installed as the first step to a comprehensive waste roadmap.
Reuse: Our campus provides a service where furniture and other office equipment can be reused across departments.

Master Plan: The recently completed award winning campus master plans (San Bernardino and Palm Desert) outline our way toward a more sustainable future. LEED buildings, considerate open spaces, and a strong attention to the student are just a few of the ways these inclusive planning efforts will lead to serious strides on the sustainability front.
Trees: Through a CalFIRE grant, 50 trees which were planted by students, staff, and faculty in parking lots F, G and H as part of April 2017’s Sustainability Week.

Shuttle: The hugely successful San Bernardino/Palm Desert Campus Shuttle provided nearly 4,000 one-way rides during the 10-week fall 2017 quarter. It’s estimated we save 226,000 lbs of CO2 per quarter!
Public Transit: CSUSB students, faculty, and staff can now ride OmniTrans for free by swiping their Coyote ID. Travel sheds were created to reduce the rider’s walk to the stops and increase ridership overall.
EV Charging: The campus recently doubled our charging station capacity for electric vehicles. The 38 charging stations currently in place and are free for staff, faculty and students.

Class Offering: The Geography and Environmental studies department will launch an Environmental Sustainability class in the Fall 2017 which will provide students a comprehensive understanding of sustainability across disciplines.
Initiative: The Jack H. Brown School of Business has led our campus participation in the UN’s PRME Initiative. Its objective is to reach international audience and instill responsible management practices.
Committee: Our Faculty Senate created an Energy Sub-committee to bridge efforts with Facilities Management and drive real energy savings across campus.
Focus: On April 10th the campus hired an Energy and Sustainability Manager to provide focus and help guide our commitment to a safe, engaging, environmentally responsible campus.
Event: CSU Palm Desert Institute for Environmental Sustainability hosts an annual expo connecting middle and high school students, teachers, university professors, community members and green companies in the Coachella Valley.

LEED: A New Dinning Commons, slated to be LEED Gold, is currently under construction and will provide stunning views of the San Bernardino Mountains.
Plan: CSUSB is set to launch comprehensive sustainability planning effort in the fall 2017 including creation of a complementary Climate Action Plan. Using the triple bottom line as the lens, this comprehensive campus (San Bernardino and Palm Desert) wide effort will create far-reaching goals and tactical roadmaps around Energy, Water, Waste, Transportation & Mobility, Land Use/Development, Education/ Community.
Portal: As part of the sustainability planning effort we are creating a portal designed for innovative engagement and reporting, cross-pollination of many student-led efforts, and integration of a Sustainability Taskforce.