The Associated Students UCLA will be testing the waters of sustainability after the approval of a new greening program Friday.
At the monthly board of directors meeting, the board approved the LuValle Commons Pilot Greening Program, which will test the success of sustainable business practices at LuValle Commons.
In order to measure the success of the sustainability project, ASUCLA board members plan to first implement as many sustainable practices as possible, and then look at the financial cost, said Bob Williams, the executive director for ASUCLA.
ASUCLA was presented with the idea of implementing sustainable practices at LuValle Commons when representatives from Ecology, Economy, Equity and the UCLA Campus Sustainability Committee met with the ASUCLA Services Committee in a meeting Feb. 10.
Since then, the ASUCLA Services Committee has met with various sustainability consultants, including Genevieve Bertone, executive director for Sustainable Works, an organization that promotes environmental education.
She outlined a plan to help LuValle Commons conserve energy and preserve resources, which she estimated would amount to a total cost of $22,000, not including the expense of infrastructure changes.
As part of the LuValle Commons Pilot Greening Program, ASUCLA drafted a policy on sustainability, which states ASUCLA’s participation in “education, business operations and community involvement that promote long-term commitment to ecological health, economic viability and community welfare.”
The board viewed LuValle Commons as the perfect “guinea pig” to test out the sustainability program, as it incorporates elements of many different services, including dining options and a UCLA store.
This all-inclusive quality would make it easier for the board to assess the success of the program on a broader level, as LuValle represents a wide range of campus services.
“It’s better to figure out the sustainability issues all at once, so LuValle is a test case,” Williams said. “It’s one operation to try a lot of operations.”
In addition to the LuValle Commons Pilot Greening Program, the board approved numerous other action items, including the motion to install two sets of bicycle racks at the entrance to Ackerman Union.
Sam Corbett, the manager of transportation planning and policy for the UCLA Transportation Services, first proposed this idea at the Services Committee meeting on April 14 in order to respond to the high demand for bicycle racks by Ackerman.
Currently, bicycles are often chained on the railings or parked on the steps to the A-level of Ackerman, said Gustavo DeHaro, the chair of the ASUCLA Services Committee and an undergraduate representative on the board of directors.
The board felt this problem would be best solved with the installation of bicycle racks at the northern and southern end of the west entrance to the UCLA Store.
The board also approved several budgets for the 2006-2007 fiscal year, including those for both the Graduate Students Association, Undergraduate Students Association and Student Media.
Though Student Media faced a $169,000 net loss in the 2005-2006 school year, the Communications Board budgeted a $70,000 deficit for next year, which is less than half that of the current year.
Toward the end of the meeting, the board exchanged farewell remarks for Werner Hirsch, a professor emeritus of economics and the faculty representative on the board of directors, who plans to leave the board at the end of the school year.