LEED Certification

For the first time, UC Merced has been awarded a Platinum rating in recognition of its sustainability achievements under the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS.)

Platinum is the highest rating a higher education institution can receive for its sustainability programs and actions. Currently, only 11 institutions throughout the nation have earned this rating.

After a lengthy and rigorous review by independent auditors, UC Merced can proudly announce it is the first public research university in the country to achieve carbon neutrality, two years ahead of its goal.

“UC Merced has been on the cutting edge of sustainability in higher education since its inception. We are proud of our many achievements in reducing our impact on the environment, and this recognition of our carbon neutrality stands among the most meaningful we have yet received,” Chancellor Juan Sánchez Muñoz said.

UC Merced has been named one of the best schools for environmental sustainability and quality of campus life, placing 20th on The Princeton Review’s list of top 50 “green colleges.”

Two simple words, “Leland Legacy,” captured the significance of Wednesday’s opening event for the second phase of the Merced 2020 Project, an event that doubled as a goodbye and thank you to outgoing Chancellor Dorothy Leland.

The message graced a wall of the new Sustainability Research and Engineering Building in large white block letters, a nod to Leland’s tireless effort and motivation to lead the award-winning expansion project.

As UC Merced continues to lead the way in sustainability on university campuses, a new wrinkle has been added to the process of certifying buildings.

Recently, the Science and Engineering 1 (SE1) building achieved gold certification under LEED Operations and Maintenance (LEED O & M) criteria. Certification is nothing new to the campus — every building at UC Merced is LEED certified or on track to be certified.

But who has begun to handle the certification process is groundbreaking.

UC Merced demonstrated that it’s living up to its reputation for being “green from the ground up” by winning five awards — more than any other University of California campus — in the 14th annual Higher Education Energy Efficiency and Sustainability Best Practice Awards.

UC Merced is among the nation’s top schools for sustainability for the third straight year, according to the Princeton Review’s Guide to 375 Green Colleges, and achieved its highest score to date with 95 out of a possible 99 points.

UC Merced checks in at No. 50 in the Sierra Club’s 2017 "Cool Schools" list, rising more than 30 spots from its previous position in the ranking of sustainable colleges and universities.

It’s the fifth Cool Schools appearance in the past six years for UC Merced, which is the only university in the nation to have all of its buildings certified by the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program.

UC Merced’s Classroom and Office Building (COB) has achieved a silver rating from the LEED Building Operations and Maintenance (O+M) sustainability program, the campus’s first certification to come from the