UCLA Sustainability

America Recycles Day TRUE Zero Waste Precertification Training
2021-11-15 16:00 - 17:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Join USGBC-LA for a special America Recycles Day Training opportunity!
REGISTER HERE
TRUE (Total Resource Use and Efficiency) is a comprehensive certification program recognizing facilities for minimizing resource consumption, preventing waste, and redesigning material life cycles so that all residual materials are reused in a closed loop. TRUE was developed as a leadership standard to recognize sites that have defined and achieved their zero waste goals, making positive impacts on people, the environment, and the economy locally and globally. However, leadership is not confined to those that have reached zero waste. Leadership is taking the first step, and all the steps that follow.

TRUE zero waste Pre-certification Path:
TRUE pre-certification recognizes projects which have implemented the fundamental actions and policies needed to effectively pursue zero waste and have demonstrated a commitment to achieving TRUE certification. As such, pre-certification is available to all projects regardless of the level of diversion performance that has been achieved.
It is an optional, incremental pathway to formal certification that prioritizes the core actions essential to getting a successful start: auditing, analyzing, and aspiring to zero waste. As pre-certification is an optional step and is not required for TRUE certification, project teams may choose to skip pre-certification and pursue TRUE certification directly, if they are ready. The information outlined below offers details on the requirements and how to achieve pre-certification using the TRUE rating system.

Objectives:

Learn trends on the zero waste and circular economy solutions
Understand how you can start with TRUE zero waste pre-certification path in your facility
Comprehend the importance of the TRUE minimum program requirements (prerequisites)
Understand the importance of a zero waste audit

Take Aways

Create your own path to pre-certification
Volunteer facility to follow through the process
Opportunity to become a TRUE Advisor

Partnership Models for Increasing Park Access
2021-11-17 12:30 - 14:00
Parks provide opportunities for people to be physically active, spend time in nature, and connect socially with others. Yet over half of Los Angeles County’s population lives in neighborhoods without access to parks and open space with the majority of high-need areas being concentrated in low-income communities of color.
LA County has an opportunity to address these decades-long issues through increased resources provided by the passage of Measure A. But money alone is not enough to address inequity. This event will delve into the importance of partnership models to advance park equity in the LA region, including examining the recently opened Golden Age Park.
RSVP: https://ucla.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_YEw8DPs-SNSywjYmpDkg3A
Moderator
Madeline Brozen, Lewis Center
Panelists
Louie Leiva, cityLAB UCLA
Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs
Miguel Velasquez, Saint Barnabas Senior Services

The Story of Plastic Virtual Screening and Panel Discussion
2021-11-17 18:00 - 20:30
The Story of Plastic is a searing expose revealing the ugly truth behind plastic pollution and the false solution of plastic recycling. Different from every other plastic documentary you’ve seen, THE STORY OF PLASTIC presents a cohesive timeline of how we got to our current global plastic pollution crisis and how the oil and gas industry has successfully manipulated the narrative around it. From the extraction of fossil fuels and plastic disposal to the global resistance fighting back, THE STORY OF PLASTIC is a life-changing film depicting one of the world’s most pressing environmental issues.
REGISTER HERE
You can watch the trailer here.
A link to the event will be sent to you on November 17th. Please check your email!
A Panel discussion will follow the film, panelists include; Dianna Cohen, Plastic Pollution Coalition CEO & Co-Founder and The Story of Plastic Co-Executive Producer, Chris Celsi, Resource Recovery & Recycling Manager with the City of Santa Monica and Page Schult, Co-founder at topanga.io.
The panel discussion will be moderated by Sarah Spitz, UC Master Gardener, Los Angeles County.
This is a Free Event! But you must register here on Eventbrite

Climate Change, Health and the Built Environment Discussion Series, Part 1: California's Landscape
2021-11-30 11:30 - 12:30
Hosted by the UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate’s Housing as Health Care Initiative, UCLA Center for Healthy Climate Solutions and Impact@Anderson.
REGISTER HERE
With an increasingly urgent need to adapt to our changing climate, the built environment offers unique opportunities for programs and new practices that can protect and improve human health. In order to effectively capitalize on these opportunities, it is critical to engage stakeholders from real estate, development, public health, public policy, climate adaptation, and other industries. The challenges – such as more frequent and severe heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, and floods — can be destructive to the built environment, harm human health, and displace communities. However, the solutions offered by intersectoral work can be cost effective, simple, and innovative. Through discussion and collaboration, implementing these types of solutions can add value to real communities, increase resilience, and improve quality of life.
The first installment in this series, California’s Landscape, will provide an overview of the current threats to our state (extreme heat, wildfire, sea level rise, drought, air quality) and discuss the ways each of these issues is mitigated/exacerbated by the built environment. Each of these topics will be linked back to health and equity and will lay groundwork for understanding the level of threat and set up discussion about ways to respond.
Speakers include: Lara Cushing, PhD (UCLA Fielding School of Public Health), David Eisenman, MD, MSHS (David Geffen School of Medicine and UCLA Fielding School of Public Health), keynote speaker Richard Jackson, MD, MPH (UCLA Fielding School of Public Health), moderator Tim Kawahara (UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate), Elizabeth Rhoades, PhD (Los Angeles County Department of Public Health), Ryan Vaughn, PhD (Jupiter Intelligence).

COP26, Climate Regulation and Beyond: How Business Leaders can Become Effective Climate Leaders
2021-12-01 11:30 - 12:30
High Impact Tea featuring Mary Nichols, Distinguished Counsel at UCLA Law, Former Chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, in conversation with Dr. Magali Delmas, Professor of Management at the Anderson School of Management and the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.
REGISTER HERE
With COP26 underway and almost to its conclusion, we wanted to feature Dr. Mary Nichols, whose work spans the gamut of environmental law and policy. Her long tenure working in this field through four gubernatorial administrations in California has made her a model of conversation, collaboration, and outcomes, managing to balance the interests of utilities companies, communities, activists, policy-makers, financiers, and the auto, oil and gas industries without getting co-opted. This High Impact Tea will explore what will come next in environmental regulations, how young graduates can have an environmental impact, and how each of us can influence corporations to be truly green. Dr. Nichols will be in conversation with Maggie Delmas, Professor of Management at the Anderson School of Management and the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA and Faculty Director of the Center for Impact at Anderson.
The High Impact Tea is a quarterly speaker series that features social impact industry leaders sharing stories about their successes, and lessons learned in their careers. The social and educational event is open to faculty, students, staff and alumni across UCLA, as well as the broader social impact community. It is designed to provide a forum for conversation and exchange of ideas among people committed to creating social, environmental and economic impact around the world.

Global Trends and The Future of Travel – The Role of Technology and Sustainability
2021-12-02 17:00 - 18:00
Join the Centers@Anderson and Professor Terry Kramer, in conversation with M. İlker Aycı, chairman of the board of directors and executive committee for Turkish Airlines, Europe’s busiest carrier, and the largest airline in the world by the number of passenger destinations served (315) . He will discuss global trends including trade issues, growing nationalism and trade wars and their implications for the future of global travel. He will also address the longer-term effects on aviation that have been accelerated by COVID-19, including digitization, remote work and the importance of sustainability. Chairman Aycı will share his observations on the values and principles that will help guide the industry towards a healthier and more sustainable future and explain how responding to these shifts decisively now, carriers should be able to look beyond the pandemic and adapt to the long-term realities of COVID-19 that are transforming global travel. UCLA Anderson Dean Tony Bernardo will provide opening remarks.
The pandemic has changed consumer and business behavior—and the airline sector—irrevocably. As remote working and virtual meetings become the norm, the industry is likely to see a slow return of business travel. Many have questioned whether business travel will ever return to its original state pre-COVID-19. And digitalization and contactless technology will continue to transform the travel experience. Personalization, hygiene and safety measures will be more important than ever. Tourism trends surrounding low-carbon travel will continue to evolve and travel will become greener and more efficient. Finally, notwithstanding the challenges of COVID-19 and technology-based transformations – – many geopolitical trends have driven growing nationalism, reducing global trade and travel. Will these trends be short term or become part of a “new normal?”
REGISTER HERE

Can Healthcare Reduce Its Carbon Footprint?
2021-12-07 17:00 - 18:00
Every nation, every industry, and every community are being impacted by climate change. While COP26 may be over and promises were made, work is already in progress in addressing future impacts of our actions today. How is the healthcare industry both contributing to the planet growing warmer, and what is being done by forward-thinking leaders to stop it? Please join us for a moderated, dynamic panel of sustainable design professionals and organizations to learn how health care can be part of the solution.
REGISTER HERE

Moderator: Heather Burpee, Research Associate Professor University of Washington Integrated Design Lab
Travis English, Director of Engineering; Chief Design Engineer Kaiser Permanente
Robyn Rothman, Associate Director, State Policy Programs Health Care Without Harm U.S.
Amber Wirth, Vice President; Sustainable Design Leader HKS

Saging the World
2022-01-11 19:00 - 21:00
The viral trend of smudging is endangering white sage. Metric tons of white sage (Salvia apiana) are being poached across wildlands to supply an international demand for smudge sticks, essential oil and other products. This plant is deeply rooted in the cultures and lifeways of Indigenous communities of Southern California and northern Baja, the only region that white sage naturally occurs in the world. The devastating theft and the appropriated trend that it fuels stand in sharp contrast with the values and traditional practices of regional Native communities. Indigenous advocates express that white sage that has been irreverently ripped from the wild, sold on the black market, shipped across the planet, and burned without regard for Indigenous practices has no medicine. Native people have long fought for the protection and recognition of white sage. Rose Ramirez and Deborah Small, authors of the Ethnobotany Project, and white sage advocates say it’s time to Sage the World: we need to boycott wildcrafted sage products, grow native plants like white sage, and reorient perspectives of plants as ‘resources’ to ‘relationships.’ David Bryant, CNPS’s Director of Education & Engagement, will speak about the Saging the World campaign, sharing co-led efforts with Rose, Deborah and Indigenous partners to protect this imperiled plant.
Information for logging onto the Zoom presentation will be posted on our website and Facebook twenty hours before the event and announced via email blast. If you are not on our Chapter email list, subscribe by clicking here.

Net Zero Accelerator Demo Day & Expo
2022-01-13 12:00 - 14:00
This annual event is one of our most compelling, featuring live and interactive demonstrations from our NZA 2021 cohort, updates from NZA alumni companies, and companies in our SoCal CleanTech Express program with the Consulate General of Canada. A panel discussion on “Growth Mode” will follow our opening keynote, and we’ll wrap up with interactive, virtual breakouts for solution-focused deep dives as well as future opportunities to connect directly on pilot projects.
REGISTER HERE

Partnership Models for Increasing Park Access in Underserved Communities
2022-01-19 12:30 - 13:30
Parks provide opportunities for people to be physically active, spend time in nature, and connect socially with others. Yet over half of Los Angeles County’s population lives in neighborhoods without access to parks and open space with the majority of high-need areas being concentrated in low-income communities of color.
LA County has an opportunity to address these decades-long issues through increased resources provided by the passage of Measure A. But money alone is not enough to address inequity. This event will delve into the importance of partnership models to advance park equity in the LA region, including examining the recently opened Golden Age Park.
REGISTER HERE

Madeline Brozen, Lewis Center
Louie Leiva, cityLAB UCLA
Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs
Tori Kjer, Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust
Miguel Velasquez, St. Barnabas Senior Services
Sean Woods, LA County Department of Parks and Recreation

UCLA Farmer's Market
2022-01-19 14:00 - 18:00 | Bruin Plaza, 308 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
The UCLA Farmers’ Market is a biweekly farmers’ market held in Bruin Plaza for UCLA students, staff, faculty, and community to enjoy. Our team further champions sustainability, community, and education through our events and workshops. Come join us and support your local LA farmers!

LA Green Jobs - Virtual Career Fair
2022-02-02 15:00 - 16:00
Hello green job seekers! It’s the top of the New Year and we would like for you to join us for our LA Green Jobs – Virtual Career Fair brought to you by USGBC-LA!
REGISTER HERE
If you’re looking for an opportunity to speak directly with hiring managers in the sustainability industry for the built environment, this is a great opportunity for you.
Register today and we look forward to meeting you at the fair.
Participating Companies:

BNBuilders
Clean Power Alliance
Green Dinosaur
Leading Edge
LendLease
Mott MacDonald
SoCal Gas

Our Climate Crisis: A Guide for SoCal Communities in the Wildland Urban Interface
2022-02-08 17:30 - 19:00
Led by the Malibu Foundation, this highly collaborative project assessed the social vulnerabilities and physical hazards of living in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) region and identified how we can more equitably mitigate and adapt to climate change through community engagement and multi-level stakeholder support.
Zoom Meeting: https://pepperdine.zoom.us/j/83251357152
RSVP HERE
Presentation of report findings and discussion of next steps to strengthen climate resilience by sustainability planning experts Shea Cunningham and Dean Kubani
Co-Hosted by Dr. Chris Doran, Pepperdine’s Sustainability Program and Trevor Neilson, Co-Founder of the Climate Emergency Fund
Project Advisory Committee Panelists:
• Ryan Craig, Resilient Palisades
• Professor Madelyn Glickfield, Local Water Policy Expert
• Cassandra Rauser, PhD, UCLA Sustainable LA Grand Challenge
• Clark Stevens, Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains
• Brent Woodworth, Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Foundation

UCLA Farmers Market
2022-02-16 14:00 - 18:00 | Bruin Plaza, 308 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
The UCLA Farmers’ Market is a biweekly farmers’ market held in Bruin Plaza for UCLA students, staff, faculty, and community to enjoy. Our team further champions sustainability, community, and education through our events and workshops. Come join us and support your local LA farmers!
Please email uclafarmersmarket@gmail.com or visit them on Instagram at @uclafarmersmarket for more info.

Renewal of Wood & Future of Mass Timber
2022-02-17 16:00 - 18:00
Join us for an informed discussion with local leaders on everything there is to know about the use of wood as a construction material! From mass timber design and embodied carbon calculations to the latest updates on wood-related code issues, we will unpack the sometimes complex issues around one of our most important renewable resources in the green building movement.
All are welcome to tune in for this panel of experts! This is a complimentary event brought to you by USGBC-LA and our sponsors.
REGISTER HERE

Watch Your Step! Assessing Carbon Footprint Workshop
2022-02-23 16:00 - 17:00
To promote UCLA’s Carbon Neutrality Initiative, the CNI ambassadors will organize a speaker panel on week eight to share environmental topics. Titled “Watch Your Step! Assessing Personal Carbon Footprint”, the panel will focus on low-carbon transportation on campus, sustainable eating habits, and carbon footprint assessment. We have invited Professor Millard-Ball from Luskin School of Urban Planning, doctoral student Samuel Speroni, and nutritionist Carole Barolotto from UCLA Dining Services to speak in our panel. All participants will enter a sustainable item drawing and have a chance to win an Arbor skateboard, Allbirds running shoes, and bamboo utensil sets. All these items help promote our goal for sustainable transportation and eating habits.
You can also use this note in the social media post: “Want to win a skateboard or a pair of shoes? Curious about how to lessen your carbon footprint? UCLA’s Carbon Neutrality Initiative is putting on a speaker panel where you can do both! Click the link to sign up!”
Here’s a link to the sign-up form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd5Un6zbKscMxx4DBCuqlydNtC15Wp-Lo2tMfnszZUY78TZ8g/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0

Going Beyond Financial Measures to A More Environmentally Sustainable and Socially Responsible Future
2022-02-24 17:00 - 18:00
Register Here
Since its debut in a United Nations report in 2006, ESG—the acronym for environmental, social, and governance issues—has captivated the attention of businesses, governments, and academics. Today, ESG is the most widely accepted measure of firms’ sustainability and social impact. The ESG movement is creating a new incentive for companies to collect and disclose information about financial, environmental sustainability, and social responsibility performance and is forcing CEOs to construct measurable means to describe and present their businesses. In less than two decades, ESG investing has evolved into a US$35 trillion industry. While it is gathering momentum around the globe, companies and stakeholders have struggled with the myriad of complex and inconsistent sustainability standards, frameworks and metrics.
Join the UCLA Anderson Center for Global Management (CGM), Center for Impact and Professor Chris Tang in a moderated discussion with internationally renowned experts in environmental issues and ESG. Professors Christine Loh and Magali Delmas, will explain why the ESG movement, unlike the lack luster CSR initiative, is motivating action by corporations. They will spotlight key challenges and opportunities for practitioners and researchers in ESG and explain why in the wake of climate change, social injustice and income inequality, corporations need to change the way they operate and go beyond the traditional financial measures by taking various ESG measurements into consideration. Looking ahead, they will share their observations on the recent announcement at COP26 of the creation of an International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) that will provide the foundation for consistent and global – environmental, social and governance reporting standards and whether companies are more likely to pivot their operations to a more environmentally sustainable and socially responsible future.

Sustainability Careers: From Getting Started to Getting Ahead
2022-02-24 17:00 - 18:30
Join the USGBC-LA Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Emerging Professionals, and Women in Green Committees for a panel discussion about entering the sustainability job market and furthering your career if you’re already here!
Hear from our expert panelists, connect with them directly, and learn more about insights and best practices for navigating a career in sustainability.
REGISTER HERE

Cities and Global Climate Justice
2022-03-02 11:00 - 12:00
As climate change becomes increasingly urgent, cities around the world are making ambitious plans to mitigate its causes and adapt to its impacts. Too often these plans are unjust. Plans meant to adapt to climate change impacts or protect the city might do so only in unequal ways, or threaten to displace marginalized residents in vulnerable places. This online session led by author and professor Kian Goh of the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy explores how grassroots climate justice activists in cities around the world fight back against unjust plans, build power among their constituents, and propose alternatives for a climate-just future.
REGISTER HERE

Networking and Career Development in the Virtual Age
2022-03-03 18:30 - 19:30
ESN and Environmental Science Alumni are hosting Networking and Career Development in the Virtual Age. This event will bring together environmentally-oriented students and alumni to socialize and connect with each other, learn how to network in the current COVID-era, and learn a little about career development and ES pathways. There will be a panel of three alumni who will talk about their careers after UCLA. Following their presentations, there will be a Q&A and networking session.
Register in advance to receive the zoom link: https://ucla.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEkdumoqDIjGdWTmIVSWEEOs2ztEo9LlneR.

ESN x ES Alumni: Networking and Career Development in the Virtual Age
2022-03-03 18:30 - 20:00
During the event our panelists will introduce their current role and then discuss the networking opportunities involved in that role. The panelists will also discuss how they may have used networking techniques to obtain their current position. Following a presentation from each panelists, there will be a Q&A session and two short networking breakout sessions where attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions and chat with alumni in a more casual setting.
REGISTER HERE
Panelists

Claudia Flores, M.E.S.M.
Environmental Planner
Water Sector at Dudek
UCLA B.S. 2017
Mikyla Reta
Policy Analyst, Energy and Environment
Center for American Progress
UCLA B.S. 2018
Nury Molina
Ph.D. Student in Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology Department
UC Santa Barbara
UCLA B.S. 2019

Adaptation and Community Resilience
2022-03-07 11:30 - 12:30
Hosted by the UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate’s Housing as Health Care Initiative, UCLA Center for Healthy Climate Solutions and the Center for Impact@Anderson.
REGISTER HERE
With an increasingly urgent need to adapt to our changing climate, the built environment offers unique opportunities for programs and new practices that can protect and improve human health. In order to effectively capitalize on these opportunities, it is critical to engage stakeholders from real estate, development, public health, public policy, climate adaptation, and other industries. The challenges – such as more frequent and severe heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, and floods — can be destructive to the built environment, harm human health, and displace communities. However, the solutions offered by intersectoral work can be cost effective, simple, and innovative. Through discussion and collaboration, implementing these types of solutions can add value to real communities, increase resilience, and improve quality of life.
The second installment in this series will highlight best practices, programs and policies for climate adaptation and community resilience through the built environment, and discuss the process for implementing them. Panelists will discuss not only their current projects and opportunities in response to the climate crisis, but also provide an overview of building strategies that increase resilience. Each of these topics will be linked back to human health and social equity.
Speakers are:
– Brian Cole, DrPH, Assistant Professor, Environmental Health Sciences, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health (Moderator)
– Sara Neff, Head of Sustainability, Lendlease Americas
– Jonathan Parfrey, Executive Director, Climate Resolve
– Ben Stapleton, Executive Director, U.S. Green Building Council – Los Angeles

Climate Lyricism with Min Hyoung Song
2022-03-07 15:30 - 17:00
In Climate Lyricism, Min Hyoung Song articulates a climate change-centered reading practice that foregrounds how climate is present in most literature. Song shows how literature, poetry, and essays by Tommy Pico, Solmaz Sharif, Frank O’Hara, Ilya Kaminsky, Claudia Rankine, Kazuo Ishiguro, Teju Cole, Richard Powers, and others help us to better grapple with our everyday encounters with climate change and its disastrous effects, which are inextricably linked to the legacies of racism, colonialism, and extraction. These works employ what Song calls climate lyricism—a mode of address in which a first-person “I” speaks to a “you” about how climate change thoroughly shapes daily life. The relationship between “I” and “you” in this lyricism, Song contends, affects the ways readers comprehend the world, fostering a model of shared agency from which it can become possible to collectively and urgently respond to the catastrophe of our rapidly changing climate. In this way, climate lyricism helps to ameliorate the sense of being overwhelmed and feeling unable to do anything to combat climate change.
Min Hyoung Song is Professor of English and Director of the Asian American Studies Program at Boston College, as well as a steering committee member of Environmental Studies and an affiliated faculty member of African and African Diaspora Studies. He is the author of three books: Climate Lyricism (Duke, 2022), The Children of 1965: On Writing, and Not Writing, as an Asian American (Duke, 2013) and Strange Future: Pessimism and the 1992 Los Angeles Riots (Duke, 2005).
REGISTER HERE

Virtual Screening of "The Ants & the Grasshopper" + Discussion of Environmental Equity
2022-03-22 17:30 - 20:30
About The Film
Anita Chitaya has a gift. She can help bring abundant food from dead soil, she can make men fight for gender equality, and she can end child hunger in her village. Now, to save her home from extreme weather, she faces her greatest challenge: Persuading Americans that climate change is real.
Traveling from Malawi to California to the White House, she meets climate sceptics and despairing farmers. Her journey takes her across all the divisions shaping the US, from the rural-urban divide, to schisms of race, class and gender, to the thinking that allows Americans to believe we live on a different planet from everyone else. It will take all her skill and experience to persuade us that we’re all in this together.
This documentary, ten years in the making, weaves together the most urgent themes of our times: climate change, gender and racial inequality, the gaps between the rich and the poor, and the ideas that groups around the world have generated in order to save the planet.
Panel
A panel discussion with Zilanie NyaGondwe, Director – Institute for the Conservation of Nature (Malawi) and Raj Patel, Co-director of The Ants and the Grasshopper will follow the film. Delana Gbenekama, the City of Santa Monica’s Equity and Communications Coordinator will moderate the panel.
REGISTER HERE

Restoring The Ancient Tongva Village Of Kuruvugna in West Los Angeles
2022-03-31 18:00 - 19:30 | La Kretz Garden Pavilion, 707 Tiverton Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Welcome to the UCLA Mathias Botanical Garden’s 2021-2022 public lecture series, Transplanted: Examining Contexts of Plants, People, & Place.
In modern day Los Angeles, there are few remaining places where people can put their hands in the earth and connect with the land and plants that sustain us. The ancient Gabrielino/Tongva village site of Kuruvungna in West L.A. thrived alongside freshwater springs that emerge along the Santa Monica fault line. Today, two acres of land there have been preserved and provide a unique space to honor the sanctity of the site and to share Gabrielino/Tongva culture in a dignified way. Younger generations are coming to learn about traditional practices, gardening, and community building. Bob Ramirez (Tongva), President of the Gabrielino/Tongva Springs Foundation, will detail the ecological restoration to preserve and protect the Kuruvungna Village Springs site, as well as share plans for the future.
REGISTER HERE

Food Relatives: Decolonizing and Indigenizing the Global Food System
2022-04-01 - 2022-04-02
The term “Food Relatives” signals to the alternative and Indigenous food systems that view food as more than a commodity. As a generative category and notion, Food Relatives gives insight into how various actors can decolonize and indigenize their respective Food Systems by attuning to the more-than-human as part of economic, social, and political lives.
Register in advance!
For Day 1 registration, click here. ONLINE
For Day 2 registration, click here. IN-PERSON at UC Berkeley
The conference’s main goal will be to connect scholars, community members, artists, and policy makers through varying critiques and discussions of three major systems of oppression in the global Food System: colonization, heteropatriarchy, and capitalism. In doing so, the Food Relatives conference will give focus on alternative food relations outside of Industrial agricultural practices in order to amplify existing decolonizing and indigenizing movements that may improve Food Systems across all Global Directions, such as Indigenous and Black stewardship, alternative food systems, and sustainable ecologies.
Questions for discussion at the Food Relatives conference may include:

How have Indigenous relationships with food and land changed in response to and as a result of colonization?
How are discussions of Food Security, Food Justice, and Food Sovereignty valuing the more-than human?
How do different disciplines tackle food system questions? What analyses are centered, or silenced, in these discussions?
What can an improved relationship with food and non-humans look like? How may that impact human and non-human health?
How have Indigenous and other historically marginalized peoples used food and land to resist colonization and exercise agency over their health, cultural practices, and social empowerment?

Registration for the Food Relatives conference will be free to all participants and attendees.
This conference is organized by the Food Institute Graduate Council (FIGC) at Berkeley, and sponsored by the Berkeley Food Institute (BFI), the Graduate Assembly (GA), the Native American Studies center, the Latinx Research Center, and the Multicultural Community Center (MCC). Inquiries to FIGC can be made via: contact@figc.berkeley.edu
Follow us on Instagram and our Facebook event!

Good Clothes, Good People Free Refill Station
2022-04-04 11:00 - 15:00, 2022-04-06 11:00 - 15:00 | Bruin Plaza, 308 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Come to Bruin Plaza to refill your personal hygiene products for free! Don’t forget to bring your own containers.
Available products include:
– Shampoo
– Conditioner
– Laundry liquid
– Dr. Bronner’s liquid soap
– Hand sanitizer
– Body wash
– Facial cleanser
– Dishwashing liquid
*Note: This event is for UCLA students only and each individual is limited to 6oz. per product per event as supplies are limited. But don’t worry, we’ll have more pop-ups in the upcoming weeks!

Luskin Lecture: Mary Nichols’ Bold Roadmap to Cleaner Transportation
2022-04-04 18:15 - 19:30
Environmentalist Mary Nichols helped lead California’s internationally recognized efforts to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions during four terms as chair of the California Air Resources Board. Her legacy includes support for policies to cut emissions from the transportation sector — the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the state and nation. Learn from Nichols’ deep experience during this conversation about how government leaders should take bold, equity-focused action. Nichols will be joined by UCLA transportation equity scholar Tierra Bills and Colleen Callahan, the co-executive director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.
Nichols has held leadership roles with environmental agencies at the national level, and TIME magazine has included her among the world’s 100 most influential people. She is currently distinguished counsel at the UCLA School of Law and the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. Nichols was inaugural director of UCLA’s Institute of Environment and Sustainability and is a former advisory board member at the Luskin Center for Innovation.
Bills holds a joint faculty appointment at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and the Samueli School of Engineering. Callahan earned her master’s in urban planning at UCLA.
REGISTER HERE
Speakers:

Mary Nichols, Distinguished Counsel at the Emmett Institute of UCLA Law

Gary Segura, Dean, Luskin School of Public Affairs

Tierra Bills, Assistant Professor, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and Samueli School of Engineering

Colleen Callahan, Co-Executive Director, UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation

Tainted Grapes, Tainted Lungs: Extreme Wildfire Impacts to Undocumented Latina/o and Indigenous Migrants
2022-04-07 12:30 - 14:00 | Luskin School of Public Affairs, Room 2353
As climate change advances, communities across the United States are adapting to the increasing threat of wildfires. In this lecture, Michael Méndez, assistant professor of environmental policy and planning at UC Irvine, explores why it is crucial to understand how climate disasters amplify existing inequalities and how to lessen the resulting harms, in particular for stigmatized populations including undocumented Latino/a and Indigenous migrants. A visiting scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Méndez was previously a faculty fellow at the Yale School of the Environment and has more than a decade of experience in the public and private sectors.
REGISTER HERE
