Be true to your cool, UC Davis, let’s all step up for UC’s Cool Campus Challenge!

It's on as of today (Oct. 6), giving our campus a green, blue and golden opportunity to show the rest of the UC system why we score so high in Sierra magazine’s “Cool School” ratings of campus sustainability.

Now, in the Cool Campus Challenge, UC is asking students, staff and faculty to learn and to showcase for others how each of us can help UC achieve its ambitious goal of carbon neutrality by 2025.

From now until Dec. 10, we'll be trading our C atoms for CCC points in this fun, friendly competition with our sister campuses, the Office of the President and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

You'll get 100 points just for signing up — and it only takes a minute or two. Get your colleagues to join, too, and form a team if you like. Everyone starts out as a “minion,” headed up the points ladder to “guru.”

Each week, the Cool Campus Challenge will highlight an important sustainability theme, from food waste to lighting to transportation. To earn points for UC Davis, you'll make pledges and take actions to directly reduce greenhouse gas emissions or increase awareness about climate disruption.

You’ll receive weekly emails alerting you to the theme of that week’s challenge, and giving you an opportunity to consider and try actions to reduce electricity, thermal and fuel use. These activities could be as simple as turning off the lights when you leave the room, or taking public transportation … things you may already be doing!

Show us, your friends, and your colleagues your progress by uploading photos and stories to your personal challenge page. You’re also encouraged to spread the word via your own social media accounts (please use the hashtag #UCool), and with posters and logos and more — all available in this toolkit.

UC President Janet Napolitano released a letter and video message today asking everyone in the university system to join her in the Cool Campus Challenge.

“Our campuses already lead the world in so many ways,” she wrote. “Now, we are tackling another ambitious challenge: striving to become the first university system in the country to eliminate our carbon footprint.

“Given the urgency to act on climate change, it’s a daring but worthy goal. But we will only succeed by working together.”

UC Davis' Sustainable 2nd Century: Carbon Neutrality Initiative

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