The title of this Core Friday is called, “UC Merced Sustainability”. In this lecture, the Professor presented the sustainability project at UC Merced with her team of students from Eco Rep. In the beginning of the lecture, she talked about what sustainability means. Sustainability has three different components to it, including the economic, the environmental and the social aspect to it. From an economical standpoint, it includes the business viability and the robust jobs market. Also, in an environmental perspective, it means how it maintains the ecosystem’s diversity and healthy natural world. Lastly, speaking it from an social perspective, it is about the importance of quality of life and community equality. One of the challenges is trying …show more content…
By 2020, the goal for UC Merced is to achieve, net zero energy, net zero landfill waste and net zero greenhouse emissions. In all these three aspect, we are most confident in the net zero greenhouse emissions. There are projects and facilities that UC Merced has implemented in order to achieve this goal by 2020. System such as solar panels are being put on on the top of the buildings. Also, UC Merced is the only University in the United States that has all its building certified. All the buildings were certified by the LEED, the leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. All buildings meet or exceed the standard for sustainability. Prior attending to this lecture, I did not know about this fact. I have seen the LEED trophy or plate all around campus but I did not know that all the buildings were certified. I personally think the idea of having all buildings at an University certified is cool and amazing because the use of energy and all the other resources are relatively high compared to residential usage. Also, since people nowadays care more about our environment and willing to take action to protect the resource that we have left. Thus, it is essential for Universities and other companies to take first action and bring attention to other