詹妮弗·k·森田著

2025年4月14日

When 萨克拉门托 State welcomed students and their families back to campus 去年秋天在Nest Fest上, they celebrated with Herky, cheerleaders, music, and of course, good food.

Few realized that kitchen scraps were the secret to keeping their mac and cheese melty, or that their tossed leftovers would fertilize the University’s 著名的绿色景观 as well as power future events like April’s Carnival on the Quad.

It’s all part of the circle of 萨克州立大学的可持续发展, where everything from bees in the garden to the biodigester in the BAC院子里 play a vital role in a closed loop system designed to reduce the University’s impact on the environment.

近10年来，环境研究校友瑞安·托德（Ryan Todd）受聘成立了可持续发展办公室，该团队制定了全面的计划，以节约用水和能源，消除浪费，并在2040年之前使Sac州立大学成为一个碳中和的校园。

“I’m excited that we’ve been successful with projects that reduce energy and water use and reduce our emissions. That’s our core function. 但更大的好处是能够与定期在这些领域工作的部门进行更多的合作。” ——Ryan Todd， Sac州立大学能源与可持续发展主任

They’ve replaced faucets and lights, installed solar panels, become gardeners and 养蜂人, begun composting, and maintained new stormwater drains to naturally filter toxins from runoff going into local waterways.

“The Office of 可持续性 continues to lead the way in what it means to be a good steward of the environment,” President Luke Wood said. “萨克拉门托 State has ambitious goals to be a zero-waste campus and carbon-neutral by 2040, and the innovative work by our campus community is getting us closer to those goals.”

现在，萨克州立大学正在收获回报。

Last summer, the California Resource Recovery Association awarded 囊状态 可持续性 the 2024年杰出废物预防奖. The campus also earned its third 星级 from the Association for the Advancement of 可持续性 in Higher Education with its highest-ever score.

萨克拉门托 State also ranked in the top 100 universities in the world by the 国际可持续发展绿色度量评级体系. 在入选的1477所学校中，萨克州立大学排名第81。

更好的是，该办公室已经赢得了许多拨款，用于支付节能照明、节水水龙头、本地植物、现场堆肥机、电动班车和可供公众使用的电动汽车快速充电站等项目。

In addition to $7 million from the CSU Chancellor’s office earmarked for energy reduction projects, 囊状态 has received more than $2 million in state money, including two back-to-back California Department of Resources, Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) grants.

“I’m excited that we’ve been successful with projects that reduce energy and water use and reduce our emissions. That’s our core function,” said Todd, now the campus’s director of Energy and 可持续性. “But the bigger win is being able to be more collaborative with the departments who are working in these areas on a regular basis.

“Now they’re all thinking about the impacts of what they do and working with our team to reduce the impacts, which also reduces costs. 你减少了水的使用量，也减少了你在水上的花费。 … I don’t even have to say anything anymore. It’s created its own momentum.”

Over the years, the team’s work with other departments has ingrained sustainability goals throughout the campus.

They experimented with different LED lights before finding one the University’s electric department liked. 所有旧的照明正在逐渐被取代，现在的首选已成为所有新建筑的标准。 节能设计元素和材料也包括在新建筑的规划中。

Todd and his 可持续性 team aren’t afraid to try new ideas or gadgets.

With the goal of becoming a zero-waste campus by 2030 looming, they’ve pushed to eliminate campus refuse from ending up in landfills or local waterways. They used one of the CalRecycle grants to buy the University’s first on-site composter.

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每天，大约有400磅来自食堂的未吃完的食物残渣被扔进这台机器，然后变成堆肥，为校园土地施肥。 剩下的堆肥被送到当地的学校。

据托德介绍，该堆肥机于今年3月投入使用，预计在10年内将从垃圾填埋场转移约100吨食物垃圾。

Last summer, 囊状态 inherited a biodigester from Cal Maritime that 把食物垃圾变成天然的，营养丰富的肥料 that’s better for the environment than artificial fertilizer.

它还会产生甲烷气体，这些气体被收集并转化为电能，进而储存在便携式电池中。 这些电池的大小和台式电脑差不多，可以代替汽油发电机，为Nest Fest等校园活动提供电力。

“We’re the only campus in the CSU system that has one, let alone two, of these types of composting technologies,” Todd said. “There’s a ton of potential for faculty to do research … and it’s also an opportunity for students who are looking to do research projects.”

环境研究教授朱利安·富尔顿说，校园运作是一个活生生的实验室。

“It’s this idea that we can use our campus as an incubator of ideas and opportunity for study and research,” said Fulton, who has been studying the effectiveness of Low Impact Development (LID) stormwater drains on campus. 他和他的学生定期收集径流的样本，并测试其中的污染物。

“There’s constantly stuff happening on campus, new projects that aren’t just static demonstrations. Their work demonstrates the process of sustainability,” he said.

“It’s really cool for students to see.”

早在2016年，可持续性就帮助一名环境研究专业的学生完成了一篇关于节水方法的高级论文研究。 他们的研究表明，动作控制水龙头可以节省大量的水，并帮助Sac州立大学赢得了70万美元的拨款，用于更换校园里所有的旧水龙头。

“It shows how they support students to do research and translate that into solutions,” Fulton said.

从检查校园内数百个回收和堆肥箱到拯救成群的蜜蜂，可持续发展工作人员的工作无所不包。

They not only maintain the CapRadio garden, helping grow fruits and vegetables that are given away to students at the ASI Food Pantry, they’re 养蜂人, too. Their apiary program produces 大黄蜂蜂蜜, which is sold online.

每天，可持续发展的工作人员都会带着当地学校的孩子参观校园，向他们介绍萨克州立大学如何努力成为环境的管家。

“When you talk about the effects of climate change and how detrimental it is right now, all the things that are happening in real time, it’s really important to have students think about why it’s happening and what’s being addressed.” -- Lizette Sweiven, high school teacher in the Buckeye Union School District

Lizette Sweiven recently took her high school students from the Buckeye Union School District in El Dorado County on a 可持续性 tour, since they’re studying the impact humans have on the environment.

“They loved the tour,” Sweiven said. “The students were riveted and hanging on every word at every location we went to. … You can tell the staff has deep convictions about sustainability, and that it’s their life purpose. My students were really curious about their career paths.”

Sweiven说，像Sac州立可持续发展这样的项目给学生们带来了积极的影响，否则他们可能会觉得这是一个艰巨的挑战。

“When you talk about the effects of climate change and how detrimental it is right now, all the things that are happening in real time, it’s really important to have students think about why it’s happening and what’s being addressed,” she said. “What are the solutions currently being used?

“As they become adults and move out into the world, thinking about their careers, they can ask if there’s something they can do to add to the solution or think outside of the box to create another solution.”

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So far, the University is on track to achieve full carbon neutrality by 2040, five years ahead of California’s 2045 deadline. The campus 最近在停车场增加了2886块太阳能电池板 on top of the 3,979 that were installed in 2021.

总的来说，这些电池板每年产生近425万千瓦时的可再生能源。

可持续性 and University Transportation & 停车 Services also partnered with SMUD on a grant from the California Energy Commission to build 囊状态’s first Electric Vehicle fast-charging station.

由大众缓解信托基金（Volkswagen Mitigation Trust）出资的两辆新的电动Herky班车将在四个新的快速充电站充电，这些充电站也将向公众开放，让他们为自己的电动汽车充电。

托德最近还得到消息，CalRecycle的第二笔拨款被批准，用于在校园内安装水瓶加气站。

“What 囊状态 has done is really important and something to be proud of,” Sweiven said. “It leads the charge and elevates what colleges should be doing, if they aren’t already.”