On May 5 the sustainability office closed the year with its second annual recognition ceremony held in the Stockdale Room at CSU Bakersfield. Individuals and projects were acknowledged and thanked for their work towards a more sustainable campus.

“Sustainability is about innovation,” said President Lynette Zelezny as she opened the ceremony.

This message was echoed throughout the event. There are many projects sustainability coordinator, Jennifer Sanchez Biedermann, and the sustainability team are tackling. The ceremony celebrated three student lead projects; Campus Tree Inventory, Farm-To-Pantry, and Green Offices.

“There are so many things that our campus is working on. I’m helping different people on our campus either secure funds or increase sustainability of their programs. Other people are doing sustainability things that I either haven’t heard about yet or just am rooting them on,” Said Sanchez Biedermann.

Sanches Biedermann has been helping and rooting on these student lead sustainability projects. She is proud to see their student leaders and their projects thrive.

First, Campus Tree-Inventory, led by Dustin Balico, a human biology major and Roel Romuald,  an economics major started as with a virtual map of trees across campus. The map grew to cover artwork, monuments and water filling stations across. These gentlemen learned and are using GIS mapping, a dynamic program, to create this project.

“The Tree-Inventory is kind of like that extra push for CSUB to become a more sustainable campus, “said Romualdo.

Although the focus of the GIS virtual map is sustainability by mapping the trees and nearest water fulling station there are other things that the gentlemen found the map would assist with.

“There is a lot of people that contributed, or majorly impacted the campus that’s why they are honored with a plaque. To have those plaques go unnoticed or under maintained would be a shame,” said Dustin Balico about the importance of mapping plaques and monuments on the map.

Next, Farm-To-Pantry, was led by Amanda Saxby. Saxby is currently focused on the growth of the Edible Garden to increase the fresh food supplied to the CSUB Food Pantry. The food pantry has grown from about 150 visits per week to 350 visits per week. The garden practices sustainability and is now accepting volunteers Tuesdays and Wednesdays 11:30 a.m. -1 p.m. It has a tentative grand opening date of Fall 2019.

“I want to make sure people are getting the healthiest produce,” said Saxby about her commitment to maintain organic produce in the garden.

Finally, Green Offices, a new program that promotes sustainability in work environments across campus. They have created a format to score and rank an office’s sustainability. Beta for this project has already been done and it is expected to really take off next year.

Alongside these projects and their leaders many volunteers were honored at the ceremony.

“I absolutely love my job… but it takes all of us together to take on sustainability,” said Sanchez Biedermann.