University of Southern California
EN-11: Inter-Campus Collaboration

The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) membership organization that empowers higher education faculty, administrators, staff and students to be effective change agents and drivers of sustainability innovation.

AASHE enables its nearly 1,000 members to translate information into action by offering essential resources and professional development to a diverse, engaged community of sustainability leaders. AASHE works with and for higher education to ensure that the world’s future leaders are motivated and equipped to solve sustainability challenges.

1) The Southern California (SoCal) Sustainability Officers Network convenes one or more times throughout the year to discuss campus sustainability challenges, share insights, and promote collaboration across private colleges, California Community Colleges, California State Universities, and the University of California system.

2) The California Higher Education Sustainability Conference (CHESC) highlights cutting-edge research, as well as case studies with proven successes in curriculum development, operational programs, and community partnerships. This event is jointly organized by independent / private colleges, California Community Colleges, California State Universities, and the University of California, and creates the opportunity for dialogue across institutions.

3) Ivy Plus Sustainability Collaborative
This Collaborative comprises 30 campus sustainability programs across leading U.S. research institutions committed to best-practice sharing and ongoing exchange of campus sustainability solutions relevant to all of our campuses. The collaborative embodies a shared objective to inform institutional strategic priorities to executive leadership through best practices updates, collective impact data-reporting and forecasting of emerging trends. This effort addresses the need in higher education for better communication of critical updates to policy-makers and executive leadership who have the ability to influence institutional decisions and resource allocation.This Collaborative represents an expansion of the original 14-member Ivy+ Sustainability Consortium that was founded in 2004. The Ivy+ Sustainability Collaborative is unique in its governance model, modest pooled financial resources, and a collective strategic planning framework that includes a priority to share learnings and scale impact broadly.The Collaborative has regular focus-sessions via zoom along with an annual in-person meeting at one of the participating institutions.

Sustainable Choices, Sustainable Futures: Empowering Students Through an Online Training
Date: Oct 29-31, 2023
Location: AASHE 2023 Conference, Online/Boston, Massachusetts and On-Demand.
Presenter: Lilian Ledesma
Description: The USC Office of Sustainability launched an online Student Sustainability Training module in April 2023. The 45-minute training allows students to explore how global sustainability imperatives connect to USC’s Assignment: Earth framework, and how students can get involved in sustainability-focused activities and organizations on campus and in the community. This presentation will explore how a year-long collaborative effort between the USC Office of Sustainability, campus partners, staff, faculty and students produced an engaging course centered on increasing sustainability literacy and empowering students to make more sustainable choices. From outlining and storyboarding the training content, to requesting and incorporating feedback from key stakeholders, attendees will learn what goes into developing, implementing and promoting an online sustainability course for a student population in the higher-education setting. An overview of the successes and challenges encountered during this process will also be discussed to help attendees gain a better understanding on how to develop an online sustainability training for their own campuses.

LABC Institute Special Presentation
Presenter: Dr. Marlon Boarnet, USC Professor and Director, METRANS Transportation Consortium
Location: USC, THE 2023 LABC SUSTAINABILITY SUMMIT
Date: September 22, 2023
https://labusinesscouncil.org/2023-sustainability-summit/

Topic: Waste Management/Resource Recovery
Location: CRAA Conference, Burlingame, CA
Date: August 16, 2023
https://www.crra.com/conference

Assessing Sustainability Literacy & Culture: Innovations & Lessons Learned by Multiple Institutions
Date: September 28th 2022
Location: AASHE Webinar and OnDemand https://hub.aashe.org/browse/video/27000/Webinar-Assessing-Sustainability-Literacy-Culture-Innovations-Lessons-Learned-by-Multiple-Institutions
Presenters: Tanja Srebotnjak - Director | Williams College, Julie Hopper - Sustainability Data Analyst | University of Southern California, Ashwani Vasishth - Professor of Sustainability | Ramapo College of New Jersey, Alice Mulder - Associate Professor Geography | Weber State University
Description: This interactive panel discussion featured four presenters from different geographic regions (eastern and western United States) and institutional contexts (private and public, and from small liberal arts colleges to large universities) who highlight their different approaches, shared challenges, and lessons learned from efforts to design and distribute surveys to assess sustainability literacy and culture (STARS credits AC-6 and EN-6) on their campus. The panel discusses the process they used to design, peer-review and distribute their surveys, as well as approaches for analyzing and sharing the resulting data. The session included insight on the opportunity to use these widely-dispersed sustainability surveys to fill in knowledge gaps pertaining to other sustainability initiatives, including those relevant to additional STARS credits, such as gauging: community service (EN-13), commuting data (OP-16), and courses (AC-1) and research (AC-9) related to sustainability. Participants were encouraged to contemplate their institute’s goals for their literacy and culture assessment, including their target audience content matter and methodology. Lastly, the panel reviewed the new STARS 3.0 requirements for AC-6 and EN-6 so that participants can craft their sustainability literacy and culture survey to maximize STARS credits for versions 2.2 and 3.0, and at the same time, center the survey around supporting their institute’s sustainability initiatives. Participants were provided access to the surveys designed by the presenters and their Institutions.

Title: Employing the SDGs to Enhance University Research and Education Sustainability Objectives
Date: October 5th, 2022
Location: AASHE Webinar and OnDemand https://hub.aashe.org/browse/video/27005/Employing-the-SDGs-to-Enhance-University-Research-and-Education-Sustainability-Objectives
Alexandra Hiniker - Director of Sustainability Initiatives | Carnegie Mellon University, Julie Hopper - Sustainability Data Analyst | University of Southern California, Kelli O’Day - Assessment Program Manager / Sustainability Officer | University of California, Davis
Although the SDGs are a global framework, there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to how universities employ them to enhance research, education, and operational sustainability objectives. The purpose of this webinar was to take a deep dive into SDG course mappings so that universities can learn from each other to determine the best approach for their university. Representatives from Carnegie Mellon University, UC-Davis, and the University of Southern California shared their methodology for SDG course mappings and then opened the floor to other universities to share what they are doing.

Title: “From start to finish: How to complete a STARS report that can be useful for fostering change agents “
Date: March 31st, 2022
Location: AASHE Webinar
Presenters: Elias Platte-Bermeo and Julie Hopper (University of Southern California) and Lisa Bjerke (GreenerU)
This virtual workshop provided an overview of the STARS process from initial steps to completion, breaking down work into phases and providing tools and tips for institutions to complete STARS for the first time. The workshop used University of Southern California’s first STARS submission as a case study, and had attendees build their own project plan, identify opportunities, and brainstorm strategies to overcome common challenges. This workshop targeted institutions that had not yet completed a full STARS report and/or were looking for a refresher on how to assess data needs, set up a collection process, and then analyze data to submit information to each of the categories of STARS. This workshop also touched upon how to connect STARS reporting to institutional strategic initiatives for effective change management and overall sustainability planning and tracking.
https://www.aashe.org/events-education/workshops-courses/from-start-to-finish-how-to-complete-a-stars-report-that-can-be-useful-for-fostering-change-agents-workshop-homepage-announcement/

Winning submissions for the 2023 AASHE Sustainability Awards:

'USC Urban Trees Initiative'
*Announced as a Winner for the 2023 AASHE Racial Equity and Sustainability Collaborations Award
Date Originally Posted: May 31, 2023
Submitted by: Marianna Babboni (USC Public Exchange)
https://hub.aashe.org/browse/casestudy/27309/USC-Urban-Trees-Initiative
Overview: The USC Urban Trees Initiative (USC Trees) brings together faculty, staff, and student researchers at the University of Southern California to help the City of Los Angeles and local nonprofits grow an equitable and resilient urban forest. To address environmental inequalities and prepare for a warming climate, the City of L.A. is planting 90,000 new trees in areas of greatest need. However, the tree-planting process is not simple. How do we identify areas of greatest need? What do we do when there is no space to plant in those areas? Since August 2020, USC experts in spatial mapping, landscape architecture, and air quality monitoring have been working with the City and local communities to answer challenging questions about where, how many, and what kinds of new trees to plant in disadvantaged areas of East and South L.A.

‘ACC Eco Film and Media Arts Festival’
*Announced as a winner for the 2023 AASHE Student Sustainability Leadership Award
Date Originally Posted: May 31, 2023
Submitted by: Chelsea Graham (USC-OoS)
https://hub.aashe.org/browse/casestudy/27316/Eco-Film-and-Media-Arts-Festival
Overview: The inaugural Eco Film and Media Arts Festival was designed to bring together student filmmakers and artists engaged in climate storytelling and activism. The festival featured 11 student films that represented an array of genres including narrative, documentary, and media art. Example subjects included university divestment from fossil fuels, the dangerous loss of biodiversity in coastal waters, nature-inspired design, and the harmful effects of oil drilling and chemical processing in primarily BIPOC communities in and around Los Angeles. Thematically, the projects engaged conversations in eco-feminism, ecological justice, and sustainable futures. Links to most of these projects are available via the primary event website linked in this proposal. Prior to the screenings, Natasha Nutkiewicz (primary author) moderated a panel discussion featuring Courtnee Zambrano, a screenwriter working on the Apple+ series Extrapolations, and Jay Ponti, grassroots activist and political organizer who participated in some of the most impactful movements of the last two decades including Standing Rock and Occupy Wall Street. Following, the films were shown and then there was a Q&A with the student artists and filmmakers. Together, the student films and lively panel discussion emphasized the need for hopeful and informed climate storytelling, the challenges of being a young filmmaker processing eco-anxiety and depression, and how to work with these emotions and cultivate hope. Overall this festival emphasized the critical importance of the arts in connecting the human experience to our larger ecological crisis as we heal, inspire action, and create communities of care.

Additional submissions to the 2023 AASHE Sustainability Awards:

'USC Trojan Shop Local Initiative'
Submission Target: AASHE Racial Equity and Sustainability Collaborations Award
Date Posted: May 31, 2023
Submitted by: Michele Turner (USC Office of Business Diversity and Economic Opportunity)
https://hub.aashe.org/browse/casestudy/27326/USC-Trojan-Shop-Local-Initiative
Overview: Certainly, since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, and the pandemic years through recent months, the focus upon opportunities to close racial economic wealth gaps has heightened throughout Los Angeles County. Substantial federal and state investments emerged as crucial elements to provide equitable resourcing for diverse businesses that were severely impacted, yet, loans and grants are not substitutes for revenues. The USC Trojan Shop Local (TSL) initiative provides an innovative revenue pathway for diverse businesses within the USC communities in Los Angeles County, with opportunities to substantiate long-termed economic ecosystem partnerships. USC Trojan Shop Local is an initiative with a specific focus on small diverse community businesses. Launched in May 2021, the USC Trojan Shop Local directory showcases over 80 neighborhood diverse businesses and has provided direct revenue streams of nearly $200,000.00 in this fiscal year. USC Trojan Shop Local provides direct connection to the Trojan Family — students, alumni, staff and faculty — to promote awareness and increase patronage, while also providing best practice information to support businesses growth and scalability utilizing the economic footprint and knowledge base of the 22 USC Schools. A capstone event for TSL businesses was an annual event (March 2023), the "USC ASCCESS Summit," which included focus on operational best practices in sustainability for small businesses. A panel featuring Los Angeles County thought leaders, faculty, and the USC Office of Sustainability provided guidance regarding the importance of incorporating new sustainability practices, trends and local resource information, as well as one-on-one sustainability counseling. A distinguishing success factor of the Trojan Shop Local initiative is due to the partnership and collaboration between two university offices that have reached over existing decentralized silos to meet community needs and address 21st century challenges: the USC Office of Business Diversity and Economic Opportunity and the USC Office of Sustainability.

‘USC’s Single-use Plastics Elimination – Beverage Bottles Policy’
Submission Target: 2023 AASHE Sustainability Awards for the Campus Sustainability Achievement Award
Date Posted: May 31, 2023
Submitted by: Joshua Sierra (USC-OoS)
https://hub.aashe.org/browse/casestudy/27320/USCs-Single-use-Plastics-Elimination-Beverage-Bottles-Policy
Overview: Case study highlighted the successful development, implementation, and ongoing enforcement of our single-use plastic elimination – beverage bottles policy. The case study reviews USC’s process, impact, and recommendations for peers looking to replicate this effort.

Other sustainability case-study submissions:

‘University of Southern California: Comprehensive Tracking of Scope 3 Emissions’
Submission Target: IvyPlus Sustainability Collaborative Case Study
Date submitted: September 30, 2023
Submitted by: Bradley Haydel (USC-OoS)

“2023 Campus Race to Zero Waste Case Study University of Southern California”
Submission Target: Campus Race to Zero Waste 2023 Case Study Challenge
Date Posted: September, 2023
Submitted by: Joshua Sierra (USC-OoS)
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/campusracetozerowaste.org/resources/learn-from-your-peers/__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!pvu1-hVMwX4OpF1zgM1WSggDd22itcNucARYVlR9Ud0tdR2NOSaDErazI_djUJpxwJFvaELeTzg$
https://campusracetozerowaste.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/University-of-Southern-California-CR2ZW-2023-Case-Study-Final.pdf
Overview: This case study focused on USC’s Single-use Plastics Elimination – Beverage Bottles Policy. The study reviewed the goals USC aimed to achieve with this policy, USC’s implementation timeline; partners; impact and metrics of success; as well as covered advice for other organizations and provided resources that USC developed for public use.

Employees:
USC’s Chief Officer of Sustainability, Mick Dalrymple, currently serves the following positions:

Member of the AASHE Advisory Council (2018 – present)

Member of the LA28 Olympics Sustainability Advisory Council (2022 – present)

Co-chair of the Ivy+ Sustainability Collaborative’s Leadership Guidance & Advocacy Working Group (2023-present)

Co-Chair of the Los Angeles Business Council Energy & Environment Committee (2023-present)

Member, USGBC-LA Green Building Corps Advisory Group (2023 – present)
https://www.usgbc.org/people/michael-dalrymple/0000035154

Five USC staff - Joshua Sierra, Jose Eskenazi, Cameron Wong, Matthew Buswell and Nichelle Mitchell-Huizar - have served or currently serve on the PAC 12’s Sustainability Working Group, where member universities provide representatives from their sustainability and athletics teams to share best practices and receive guidance.
Website: https://pac-12.com/team-green/sustainability-working-group

USC staff - Gina Whisenant (past member), Ernesto Padilla (current member) and Nichelle Mitchell-Huizar (past member) - have been or are current members of the Zero Waste Campus Council, a group of sustainability-focused stakeholders from universities across the nation, reviewing zero waste initiatives on campus. https://www.crra.com/zwcc-technical-council

Students:
Climate Action Council:
2020-2021: Tianna Shaw-Wakeman
2022-2023: Alyssa Jaipersaud
Website: https://www.lamayor.org/AboutMYCCA

California 100 Future Fellow
Alyssa Jaipersaud (2022-2023)
Isabella Niems (2022-2023)
Owen Ramsby (2022-2023)
Roger Alvarado(2022-2023)
Genesis Guerra (2021-2022)
https://california100.org/youth/

USC participates in the Southern California Sustainability Officers Network and in the Ivy Plus Sustainability Collaborative. Both of these sustainability networks promote collaboration and co-mentorship among sustainability teams across academic institutions to strengthen their sustainability programs and put forth aggressive sustainability commitments.

Southern California Sustainability Officers Network Activities:
Met on September 21, 2022 at the CARB Headquarters in Riverside, CA. Attendees included representatives and sustainability officers from CSU Office of the Chancellor, CSUN, CSUSM, Fullerton College, HMC, LACCD, LMU, UCR, USC, and UCLA. Activities included a morning discussion with introductions of all the sustainability officers from each institution, followed by a tour of the CARB facility, lunch, and finished with an afternoon discussion of shared sustainability initiatives- progress and questions. USC's Data Analyst -Julie Hopper shared USC's work on mapping curriculum and research to the 17 UN SDGs and shared all source code and datasets with the members of these institutions.

Ivy Plus Sustainability Collaborative Activities:
USC Office of Sustainability sent two representatives to the Ivy Plus Consortiums in 2022 (Mick Dalrymple and Ellen Dux) and in 2023 (Mick Dalrymple and Bradley Haydel).
The Ivy+ Sustainability Consortium hosted its annual Sustainability Collaborative Summit from June 22nd-23rd 2022 at Harvard (Boston, MA) and on June 21st -23rd 2023 at UPenn (Philadelphia, PA). Members had the opportunity to learn from each other about higher ed sustainability trends, opportunities and challenges at their institutions, and share best practices.

In August-September of 2023, USC's Chief Sustainability Officer- Mick Dalrymple, Associate Director of Operations- Brad Haydel, Data Analyst- Julie Hopper, and PSIP Intern- Ankita Gupta, led the data analysis and presentation of the scope 3 emissions across all of the Ivy Plus Sustainability Collaborative Institutions, in collaboration with Stanford University's Scope 3 Emissions Program Manager- Moira Zbella, in preparation for reporting out the data to all the participating institutions.

USC's participation in the Ivy Plus Sustainability Collaborative also led to the current relationship between USC and the University of Virginia, where USC's Sustainability Data Analyst - Julie Hopper and University of Virginia's Sustainability Director-Andrea Trimble are actively reviewing each others STARS reporting data prior to submission.

Other related activities:
USC’s Associate Director of Sustainability, Bradley Haydel will be attending the 2023 California Higher Education Collaborative Conference, University of California Sustainability Staff Retreat from November 28 - December 1, 2023

USC’s Office of Sustainability staff visited CSU Northridge on November 30th, 2022 to meet their sustainability team, tour their sustainability center and to exchange knowledge and ideas about our shared sustainability initiatives.

USC’s Office of Sustainability, Well-being Collective and WorkWell Center staff visited UC Irvine on November 16th 2022 to meet with their sustainability and wellness teams and to tour their campus and sustainability hub. We had several round table discussions about their sustainability and wellness initiatives and how they made progress toward some of their sustainability goals, as well as to discuss some of USC’s sustainability goals (and progress and methods towards accomplishing these goals).

USC is conducting a review-exchange with University of Virginia for this STARS report. University of Virginia is reviewing USC's 2023 STARS report, and in exchange USC is reviewing University of Virginia's STARS report (submission in 2024).

USC was a member of the Green Sports Alliance in 2021 and 2022: https://greensportsalliance.org/about/

USC sustainability staff gave presentations to several other universities and high schools:

Waste Management Infrastructure/Practices: Zoom Meeting
La Canada High School (7/12/2023)

Assignment Earth
Georgetown Executive Leadership Retreat (5/30/2023)

Single-use Plastics: Zoom Meeting
University of Michigan Medicine (8/4/2023

Related News Articles:
https://dailytrojan.com/2022/09/30/usc-and-other-universities-share-approaches-to-measuring-sustainability-literacy/

https://sustainability.usc.edu/2023/03/06/making-la-usc-architecture-students-design-sustainable-structures-for-la2028-olympic-games/

2023 AASHE Sustainability Award Winners Announcement:
https://www.aashe.org/news/aashe-reveals-the-2023-sustainability-award-winners/?utm_source=Higher%20Logic%20Marketing%20Automation&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Marketing&_zs=cvMLd&_zl=vGar3