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 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 expenses.
Efficiency: The Central Plant is currently undergoing conversion to a low-temperature hot water system. Tied to the Fuel Cell plant, this conversion will allow us to utilize even more 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: A 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 per hour.
Controls: The Utility Infrastructure Project (Phase III) is underway and will retrofit some of the campus utility meters to “smart meters”. In addition, 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 demonstrating how water-saving green design can be beautiful.
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: The first step towards a comprehensive waste roadmap was the installation of 150 recycle bins.
Reuse: Our campus provides a service for furniture and other office equipment to 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 strong attention to the students are just a few of the ways these inclusive planning efforts will lead to severe strides on the sustainability front.
Trees: Through a CAL FIRE grant, students, staff, and faculty planted 50 trees 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 are 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 of 2017, providing students with 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 an international audience and instill responsible management practices.
Committee: Our Faculty Senate created an Energy Sub-committee to bridge efforts with Facilities Management and drive absolute 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 dining common, slated to be LEED Gold, is currently under construction and will provide stunning views of the San Bernardino Mountains.
Plan: CSUSB will launch a comprehensive sustainability planning effort in the fall of 2017, including a complementary Climate Action Plan. The usage of the triple bottom line as the lens, this comprehensive campus-wide (San Bernardino and Palm Desert) effort will create far-reaching goals and tactical roadmaps around Energy, Water, Waste, Transportation and Mobility, Land Use/Development, and Education/ Community.
Portal: As part of the sustainability planning effort, we are creating a portal for innovative engagement and reporting, cross-pollination of many student-led efforts, and integration of a Sustainability Taskforce.