UC Berkeley Sustainability Efforts, A Progress Report.

UC Berkeley is marching towards a greener campus at the same speed it is preaching about being green. The campus has Stepped-up recycling, changed the lighting arrangements, transit use promotion, Strawberry Creek, one of my favorite features of campus grounds, habitat restoration and increased use of local and organic food in the dining halls.
All these attempts: successful, partially implemented and as well as others still on drawing board has been published in the 2008 sustainability assessment issued this fall by the Office of Sustainability and the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Sustainability (CACS).
UC Berkeley News has a very comprehensive article.
But a list of more than 400 sustainability-related courses taught at Berkeley by some 300 faculty, with 86 academic-degree programs and dozens of research centers are listed online at Berkeley's sustainability portal.

Tags: Berkeley's sustainability portal, UC Berkeley, Strawberry Creek Habitat Restoration

The Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI), A "Deal of Distinction"

According to an article on UC Berkeley News, university's $500 million biofuels research partnership with energy giant BP, signed nearly a year ago, has been named a "Deal of Distinction" by the Licensing Executives Society, an organization of U.S. and Canadian technology transfer professionals.
Even though I am on the other side regarding the patents, I am somewhat siding with this project as it provides ways and means for research. Patenting clean energy resources might not spread the use but may spring others to compete.
The Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI), which is conducting research related clean renewable energy, is a research partnership between UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and BP.
"This deal enables the partners to leverage complementary skills, expertise and resources in a way that has the potential to result in the development of novel energy sources and solutions that could significantly benefit the global community," said White. "The IUGI sector is extremely pleased to congratulate this year's winners for this important collaboration."
Learn more about EBI here.

Tags: UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, BP, EBI, energy patents