Purpose

The Environmental Sustainability Committee shall advise the Graduate Assembly, as well as all necessary individuals within the Graduate Assembly, on the sustainability of all relevant actions and politics of the Graduate Assembly. It shall also issue an annual report on the Gradate Assembly’s sustainability and shall work with the relevant parts of the Graduate Assembly to improve sustainable practices and implement sustainable policies. Notes are taken of the meetings, which must be noticed and open to the public.

Members

Chair - Danny Kramer
Bradley Froehle (chair emeritus)

Committee Reports

Advocacy continues.
1) Responsible endowment investment: working group with ASUC and STEAM ongoing.
2) Discussing formal ways to support the Campus Bicycle Committee in getting funding to fully implement the Campus Bicycle Plan, which, among other things, would improve bike parking on campus.
3) Communicating with administration on improving recycling on campus in myriad ways.

1. Responsible Investment moves forward. At the last committee meeting, we agreed on wording for a potential directed action resolution for the upcoming GA delegates meeting. Upon meeting with Scott Biddy, Vice Chancellor of University Relations, who oversees all things endowment, I came away with two beliefs. First, our ideas on making our endowment more socially and environmentally sustainable are good ideas, and many have a very good chance of becoming UCB Foundation practice. Biddy was especially positive about the idea of forming a committee to address corporate responsibility issues in determining how to vote our proxies on shareholder resolutions. Second, the time is not quite ripe for our plans. As Biddy explained, our management is currently in the early stages of transition from a system where we have virtually no control over decisions affecting investment responsibility to an in-house investment management structure where we may exercise direct control over such decisions. But we are too early in the transition to create an effective investment responsibility committee. Most of the key hires for the new structure are still in the works, and the UCB Foundation is still figuring out the basic structure of the new in-house company. Biddy indicated that next semester the time will be riper for our ideas. We will keep the directed action on the backburner until the timing makes more sense. In the meanwhile, we continue to work with undergraduates in STeam and ASUC Senator Christina Oatfield to create a workable blueprint to implement our progressive ideas and vet them and gather input from faculty and administration. Please let me know if you'd like to be part of our issue team / planning group for responsible investment.

2. Campus Bike Plan implementation. Early stages. We've chosen bikes as our #2 issue. Committee Members Stella So (stellaso@berkeley.edu) and Miranda Lucia Pitterman (mirandalucia1@gmail.com) are taking the lead to investigate why the carefully designed campus plan has not yet been put into effect, and ways forward. Contact them or me to join that issue team.

3. Plates. I need one or two people to step up and agree to transport plates to the next GA meeting. Please reply to let me know you'll help. It's fun and quick, but I need help.

4. Next meeting. I think it would be futile to try to have a good substantive meeting amidst finals, so I'm putting it off until the start of the new semester. I'll send out a doodle mailer over break. Email me to get involved.

At our October 16 Meeting, we decided the following:
1. We chose to focus on responsible investing of the UC Berkeley Foundation endowment as our big main core issue. The Foundation manages over $800m of our endowment (and rising quickly), and they're currently doing it in a way that does not achieve the goals this university should have for sustainability, responsibility, and education. We will pursue, to begin with, three improvements to the current system.

1. Transparency. The foundation should release to the public, every six months, a list of our investments.
2. Proxy Voting. At annual shareholder meetings, shareholders get to vote on shareholder-introduced resolutions that can induce a company to adopt more sustainable policies and practices. Currently, the foundation abdicates that power to the companies themselves, who use our votes to reinforce the status quo. We instead would form a committee of students, faculty, and alumni to direct our investment managers on how to vote our shares.
3. Student-Initiated Shareholder Resolutions. UCB students themselves will be able to draft shareholder resolutions, gather signatures on them, and put them to an online vote by the student body. With enough votes, the student(s) behind the resolution will be authorized to put forward the resolution at the company's annual shareholder meeting with the power of the foundation's votes behind them.

Resolutions can be extremely effective tools for improving a company's practices; for example, take this snippet from my favorite news source, FOXnews.com: "In 2006, As You Sow pressured Apple Computer via shareholder resolution about its supposedly "insensitive" recycling program. Though Apple CEO Steve Jobs disputed the allegations and the resolution was soundly defeated by Apple shareholders, the company nevertheless began kow-towing to environmental activists on the recycling issue."

Apple has just launched a new series of laptops more environmentally sustainable than anything ever. So these resolutions are extremely important, and we should as a responsible educational institution take part in the FREE activity of responsible shareholder activism. Environmental practices are just one area of concern that can be addressed through shareholder resolutions -- others include social justice and workers' rights.

We have begun strategy planning on this issue, in conjunction with the undergraduate subgroup of the ASUC Sustainability Team in charge of sustainable investment.

2. Other issues. Two issues will be considered at next month's meeting to fill this role. The first, involving improvements in recycle bins, is being headed up by Alberto, Miranda, and Michal. The second, involving implementation of the Campus Bike Plan, will be spearheaded by Brad and Alex. Only one will be chosen for immediate action as a core role of our committee. If you want to help these folks research and present these issues for the next meeting, you can get in contact with them.

3. The next meeting time will be determined again by a doodle mailer. This worked well.

4. Email me if you're interested in helping out.

We met on Sept 16, for just over an hour. We agreed to bring issues to the next meeting. It's everyone's shared responsibility to research and bring issues. Group up, work alone, find someone new...but however you do it, bring issues. An issue is not a problem. An issue is a solution to a problem. An issue is not a strategy. A strategy is how we make the issue happen; we aren't yet ready for that step. I sent out an excellent guide to what I'm talking about, from a fantastic book on direct action organizing. If you want to look at it, email me and I'll send it to you as a pdf. At the next meeting we will choose which issues to begin work on immediately. We will pick issues based on the checklist at the back of the packet I handed out, based on our institutional memory (Brad and Alex), and based on our willingness to commit time. Miranda Lucia Pitterman agreed to go to at least the first CACS meeting. Karen Weinbaum agreed to go to at least the first TGIF meeting. I have set up a meeting with the campus staff Sustainability Coordinator, Lisa McNeilly. We will meet Oct 3 at 1pm. Anyone interested in working on ES issues with us is welcome to come. Gwyn Harrison-Shermoen and Alex Rennet agreed to help with plates for GA meetings. www.doodle.ch is working well as a meeting scheduler. As of this report on 9/26, we've nearly arrived at an acceptable meeting time. I'll post that time as soon as it's final. The next meeting will last about 2 hours, not to exceed 2 1/2 under any circumstances. MOST IMPORTANTLY - Anyone and everyone is encouraged to join this committee, even if they are not delegates to the GA. If you have friends who you think may want to influence our campus (and our world) to adopt more sustainable practices, this is the group for them. I absolutely promise.

Meeting Dates & Notes

Spring 2008
May 13: Agenda & Notes
April 8: Agenda & Notes
March 11: Agenda & Notes
February 12: Agenda & Notes

Fall 2007
December 10: Agenda & Notes
November 19: Agenda & Notes
October 15: Agenda & Notes
September 24: Agenda & Notes

Resolutions
Green GSI Resolution