This page was last updated as of October 31st, 2023
This page details the SMCCCD Sustainability Team's current projects, updated on a quarterly basis.
Sustainability Career Center
PCE Grant
It’s official! The District Sustainability team has secured up to $175K of funding from our local community choice aggregator Peninsula Clean Energy to establish the first Sustainability Career Center of SMCCCD on CSM campus! The career center will hire students to create 3 clean-energy related sustainability exhibits using the Museum of Tomorrow model. This grant not only provides students with paid professional development opportunity in the field, but also reaches a wider audience than people working in the space with its end-products: the travel-friendly exhibits expected to go on tour in our local communities!
The grant allows us to hire up to 5 student assistants with starting pay at $20.37 for up to 250 hours in the Spring Semester 2024. The student assistants will be supervised by a full-time SMCCCD Project Engineer.
SKY Lawn Replacement Project
The Susty Team applied in March to receive free, pollinator-friendly landscaping from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. As our application was accepted, we are working with our Groundskeeping team at Skyline College to coordinate a planting day on November 15, 10-12, during which the campus community can come out to help us plant the native landscaping at Lot P! This project will help us reduce our water usage and also allow us to apply for Bee Campus status.
Waste Infrastructure Updates:
Compactors and Outdoor Compost
Over the last few months, we have worked with Recology, our Facilities Managers, Senior Engineers, and our Purchasing department to enact important waste infrastructure updates across the District. Our cost benefit analysis revealed a need for a new compactor at Skyline (which can hold 3x more waste, leading to less pickups and emissions) which we are now in the process of procuring. We are also rolling out outdoor compost bins at Skyline and Cañada Colleges, repurposing old bins or unused two stream bins to reduce costs.
EV Charger Rip-and-Replace
Another large project we are undertaking is a makeover of our EV chargers. The chargers in Skyline College Lot L will be replaced with 8 Blink chargers, and those in Cañada College Lot 1 and 2 will be replaced with 6 new Blink chargers. At CAN Lot 6, we are also working on upgrading the ChargePoint face plates. Happy charging!
Conference Blitz!
The Sustainability Team has attended multiple conferences over the last few months across the state and even country! These include:
-NCORE Anti-Racism Conference, New Orleans
-CCEC Government Energy Efficiency Conference, Santa Rosa
-PG&E Water Efficiency Conference, San Rafael
-CA CCC Sustainability/Higher Education Conference, SoCal
-AASHE 2023 Conference and Expo, Boston
We have networked, presented, and learned a lot, and will be using our takeaways to inform our future projects.
Coming soon: BAEJA 2
The second Bay Area Environmental Justice Assembly will be held at CSM on December 1st, featuring keynote speaker San Mateo Mayor Amourence Lee. Register here to join!
