UC Santa Cruz Leads the Way in Campus Sustainability

By Elida Erickson, Sustainability Director, UC Santa Cruz

UC Santa Cruz is excited to announce the successful first year of the 5-year Campus Sustainability Plan (2017-2022)! UCSC took a comprehensive planning approach to the development of the plan and identified key ways to reconsider opportunities for synergies and interactivity between a variety of sustainability topics.

Procurement was no exception. Procurement has been included within the Materials Management & Food Systems section of the plan, which examines the purchase, use, and disposal or recycling of goods, as well as growing, consuming, and composting of food. These issues are interdependent: the campus waste stream is largely composed of materials and food that were procured or grown by the campus.

In addition to sustainability challenges related to the procurement of materials or food and how it is disposed of or repurposed, each of these topics also has social justice implications, such as the distribution of university spending to local and diverse vendors; the labor conditions for people who grow the food our campus eats; and the environmental degradation that can occur in communities where products are recycled or sent to landfill.

Collaboration is key to advancing Materials Management & Food Systems goals, strategies and actions. Staff at the Sustainability Office and Procurement Services are excited about current and future partnership opportunities to take the campus’ sustainable procurement practices to the next level, and model how implementation at the Santa Cruz campus may be applicable across the UC system.