Sustainability

The University of California has selected its second class of Global Food Initiative (GFI) fellows — including three students from UC Merced — who will work on projects ranging from food access to policy to waste.

Four months into the reporting period for Gov. Jerry Brown’s water-reduction mandate, and UC Merced has so far exceeded the goal.

Now it needs the campus community's help.

The campus, which constructed all of its buildings to be 40 percent more efficient than state requirements, has so far been able to trim another 25 percent of its water consumption from the baseline year of 2013, despite the addition of two new buildings and 1,000 more students since then.

Fedele Bauccio, CEO and co-founder of Bon Appétit Management Company, will speak on campus early next month at an event sponsored by the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Sustainability, Dining Services, the Blum Center and the Karen Merritt Writing Program.

The event is free and open to all, and begins at 1:30 p.m. March 17 in the California Room.

Bauccio is visiting campus as part of the Sustainability Speaker Series. This year’s theme is food, in keeping with UC President Janet Napolitano’s Global Food Initiative.

On Food Day, Oct. 24, the nation will celebrate healthy, affordable and sustainably produced food.

After such a hot summer, a cool campus will be a welcome change this fall.

Note: This story originally ran in the Fall 2015 issue of UC Merced Magazine.

By Joel Patenaude

California, long envied by the rest of the country for its climate, beauty and natural resources, is four years into a drought and in the midst of a water crisis a century in the making.

With Gov. Jerry Brown imposing mandatory water restrictions on residents, the state’s staggeringly complex water woes have taken the sheen off at least some of the California dream.

Undergraduate student Andrew

UC Merced is the only university in the country to have all of its buildings certified under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. That body of work was honored at the spring conference of the group’s Central California chapter, where UC Merced was recognized for having the most LEED-certified buildings in the region.

The University of California, Merced, has moved a step closer to realizing its plan to build a new center in downtown Merced that will provide space for administrators and collaborations with community partners