Sustainability at UCSC

Aurora Winslate, UCSC sustainability coordinator, gave a good talk last night at UCSC Summer Sustainability Lecture series and discussed some of the challenges and rewards of trying to shift the behavior of a large organization, such as UCSC.

Ms. Winslate's profession - sustainability coordinator - is a new one with with only 500-1000 in the US. But it is growing quickly!

To change an organization is a bit harder than even changing one's personal habits, like shorter showers. Different departments, with different purposes, budgets and internal 'culture', need to work together differently. It isn't enough to design a green building; they must also be maintained (different budgets and people). Academics and operations don't always work closely. Purchasing can be very different, new contracts, RFPs, expectations, etc.

Some administrators 'get it' and some don't (haven't we done enough?) and some are caught in the bureacracy (we have to change contracts, but I don't have the staff, it isn't in my job description yet). Ms. Winslate seems to have the patience and political savvy to go for the "low-lying fruit" (change the paper, more composting, a lot has been with dining halls) and she reports that in many cases employees become enthusiastic about finding more opportunities to make changes.

Of course, many of the projects she described also lower costs, something every administrator these days listens to. Students are also eager to get involved and apply problem-solving skills to real problems in their world, a possible shift in American education. (And students in this decade appear especially eager to be involved because of deep disallusionment with the last president.)

Ms. Winslate seemed to doing well and there are plans to rank different schools for sustainability, which we all hope UCSC will do well.

The empowerment of lower level employees pleased me but something kept bothering me. What happens when we run out of 'low lying fruit', and change starts to cost money? Or, change becomes a little less convenient? Or, my favorite topic and may god forbid it, private automobilies and the revenue from parking fees must go away?

And I was troubled too by "beefless days" in the dining hall. Nothing wrong with that. I grew up in a Catholic community and Friday's everyone had to eat fish. That's an old idea, but still a good one. But in the past decades we've had other reasons to not eat meat: the animals, for health reasons. But guess those haven't reached the dining halls yet. If sustainability kicks us out of the meat habit, then it's great. But somehow I am not convinced this is enough, or it will last or it will scale up.

With smoking, once the cultural norm everywhere, our society somehow, someway changed despite intense resistance from a wealthy industry. It wasn't cool anymore (well, except on Pacific Avenue). Will sustainability become 'cool' .... do we have time?


August 18 - Agroecology & Sustainable Farming
August 25 - Sustainable Transportation