Since 2012, UC Santa Barbara has received a Gold Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System rating on their Annual Sustainability Report. This is a comprehensive report on policy areas including water use, generated waste, green building and greenhouse gas emissions.

Ken Hiltner, an environmental humanities professor, chair of the UCSB Sustainable Transportation Committee and faculty co-chair of the Chancellor’s Campus Sustainability Committee, explained UCSB’s sustainability initiatives and his perspective on the roles of students in sustainability on our campus. 

“It’s really the synergy of a great many sustainability projects and initiatives over the years that have created the most impact. Things like increasing biking on campus and shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy,” Hiltner said. 

According to the 2024 Annual Sustainability Report, 90% of UCSB’s student body and 50% of employees use sustainable commuting options as their primary mode of transportation, with the majority of both on- and off-campus students choosing to walk or bike. 

“69% of our undergrads either walk or bike to campus. In order to encourage this, UCSB has roughly seven miles of dedicated bicycle paths and 20,000 bicycle parking spots. As a consequence, in 2019 UCSB was recognized as a Platinum-level Bike Friendly University. Only eight universities in the U.S. received that designation,” Hiltner explained. 

UCSB has also focused on reducing campus greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through the Decarbonization Study Project Committee. 

“Right now, over 90% of UCSB’s remaining operational GHG emissions come from burning natural gas on campus for heating and cooling. Our goal is to transition away from fossil fuels by using renewable sources for heating and cooling on campus,” Hiltner said. “The remaining decarbonization of UCSB will certainly be an enormous challenge, as it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take many years, but I find it very exciting.”

Student-run organizations, such as California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG), are essential to sustainability initiatives at UCSB and the entire UC System. Third-year economics and political science double major Jake Twomey, UCSB CALPIRG Vice Chair and California State Board Chair, explained how he helps various UC chapters plan campaigns and represents student voices across the state on environmental issues and policy. As a result of organizations and nonprofits like CALPIRG, student activism on campus has led to more aggressive climate action from the UCs, according to Twomey. 

“Even though campuses purchase clean electricity from the grid, they still burn fossil fuels on-site for things like heating and cooling. CALPIRG Students has been working to ensure that transition happens as soon as possible,” Twomey said. “We have no time to waste when it comes to phasing out fossil fuels, especially as we see the effects of climate change getting worse around us. The good news is that UCSB is a relatively green campus already; since 1990 we have reduced our carbon footprint by around 60%.”

UCSB currently uses 70,119,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of imported electricity from certified clean and renewable sources, and 10,559,000 kWh of electricity from on-site, clean and renewable sources, according to the annual sustainability report. In total, 44.02% of UCSB’s energy is derived from clean or renewable sources.

Another focus of the sustainability movement on campus is moving toward eliminating single-use plastics. 

“Back in 2020, CALPIRG Students decided to take on the plastic pollution generated by UC campuses … Students saw that single-use plastics were one of the most unnecessary kinds of waste and organized on every UC campus to put an end to it,” Twomey said. 

“Through working with sustainability departments and the UC Office of the President, we won one of the most ambitious plastic policies in the nation. To win on that, we gathered [more than] 12,000 petitions from students, passed resolutions with student governments and held big visibility events like beach cleanups to build awareness about the problem,” Twomey continued.

In general, UCSB has worked toward decreasing the amount of waste generated, with the total waste generated per average campus user decreasing from 0.57 tons in the baseline year (2007) to 0.24 tons in the performance year (2023), according to the Annual Sustainability Report.

UCSB made significant strides in the amount of waste on campus. Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (S.T.A.R.S.) reports how the school has reduced the number of waste created by over 10,000 tons since 2007.

Furthermore, UCSB has reduced water withdrawal by over 19 million gallons since 2005 as stated in the annual S.T.A.R.S. report. According to UCSB Sustainability, they are “committed [to] reducing growth-adjusted potable water consumption 20% by 2020 and 36% by 2025, when compared to a three-year baseline of FY2005/06, FY2006/07, and FY2008/08. Our campus has a rich history of implementing and institutionalizing conservation & efficiency projects and programs on campus, which includes the use of recycled water on our campus.”

In recent years, UCSB’s positive sustainability investments have grown, currently accounting for 8.24% of the university’s total investment pool according to the UCSB S.T.A.R.S. 2024 report. Key investments include renewable energy developers, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and Energy Star-certified real estate, venture funds focused on sustainability solutions and financial institutions supporting credit access for economically disadvantaged communities.

“Over the years, UCSB has made a range of sustainable investments. One example would be the many solar panels that you see installed on campus buildings. In 2018, we completed a project that increased our onsite renewable energy generation capacity by a factor of 10, bringing it up to 6.2 [megawatts], which is enough to provide over 40% of the campus electricity demand on a peak day,” Hiltner said. “These efforts continue today with projects like the Decarbonization Study Project, which, as I noted, will ultimately invest hundreds of millions of additional dollars in our effort to decarbonize UCSB.” 

In the long term, both faculty members and students share a vision for sustainability at UCSB, according to Hiltner, who said that he has witnessed firsthand the growth in student enthusiasm for the sustainability cause on campus and an urgency to help the planet. 

“Witnessing students, literally thousands every year, signing up for courses and joining student-led programs — there are dozens of them on the UCSB campus — that focus on the climate crisis and a range of additional environmental issues confirms for me that there is hope for the future,” Hiltner said.

Twomey shared how CALPIRG is working towards a greener future for UCSB. 

“Since fall, I have been incredibly proud to see dozens of students from varying backgrounds take on responsibility and learn what it means to make political change. … We have a track record spanning [more than] 50 years of wins on conservation, clean energy and pollution reduction and I want to make sure we’re set up to do that for years to come,” Twomey said. 

Twomey noted that youth engagement has historically played a role in enacting change.

“Young people especially have always been at the forefront of change, so even though we’ll never solve all our problems, we definitely can make things better than if we were resigned to inaction,” Twomey added.

A version of this article appeared on p. 14 of the Feb. 27, 2025 edition of the Daily Nexus.