GREENING UCSB: DEVELOPMENT OF AN ASSESSMENT ...

• Compile and publish data on sustainability. There is a significantinformation deficit on campus sustainability issues. Data on resourceuse should be readily available to students and members of thecommunity and monitored over time. Proposals such as a frequentlyupdated website containing energy use data by building are a step inthe right direction.10.4 Choosing a PathThis project’s vision extends beyond the border of the UCSB Campus. We believe theconcept of sustainability is the future of environmental policy-making at the local,state, national, and global level. This report seeks to contribute to the recent literatureon the development of sustainable communities (See Mazmanian and Kraft, 1999 andKamieniecki et al., 1997). Ever since the issuing of the Brundtland Commissionreport, sustainability has been part of the discourse. However, now it is time toadvance the theoretical discussion into a functional idea of how sustainability can beapplied in the real world. We took on the extraordinary task of analyzing all the majorissues involved with sustainability—Building Design, Energy Use, WasteManagement, Air Quality and Transportation, Water Management and LandscapeManagement—with the hope of evaluating the current situation at UCSB anddeveloping recommendations and policy that will lead the University in the rightdirection, while also establishing a model for other universities to follow in the future.The University of California, Santa Barbara is facing a choice that is analogous to thefamous poem by Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken. Two roads do diverge ahead ofus, one path leads to an acknowledgement of our responsibility to the present andfuture generations to take action to protect our natural resources and establish asociety that is truly sustainable. The other is the well-worn path resistant to change,leading to a future of dwindling resources and possible drastic changes to the naturalenvironment. When we “shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ageshence” will we be secure in the knowledge that we made the correct choice or will weregret the lost opportunities of the past?161