President Robert S. Nelsen, left, and members of Sacramento State's sustainability staff (with KCRA's Tamara Berg in the center foreground) give a "Stingers Up!" at a Keep California Beautiful event held April 20 at Sac State's Bioconversion and Compost Facility. (Sacramento State/Jessica Vernone)

Sacramento State has long been recognized as a leader in promoting environmental sustainability, and now the University has added another item to its long list of distinctions: the first college campus in the nation to be an official Keep America Beautiful affiliate.

The partnership with state affiliate Keep California Beautiful, in place since last year and recognized during an April 20 event at Sac State’s Bioconversion and Compost Facility, formalizes the University’s existing relationship with the organization and is aimed at developing a “campus affiliate” model that can be adopted at colleges and universities across the nation.

“Sac State has been a leader in so many different areas, including sustainability and community volunteerism, and becoming a Keep America Beautiful affiliate will provide opportunities for the University to engage more directly with the community and other resources in California and nationally,” says Christine Flowers, an environmental studies lecturer who served as Keep California Beautiful’s executive director from 2007 to 2013.

Through the partnership, students will continue to have access to volunteer and internship opportunities through Keep California Beautiful and its other partners. The University also will be able to share data from student and faculty research, as well as tap into additional resources such as grants and programmatic resources available through Keep America Beautiful.

During the April 20 event, Sacramento State President Robert S. Nelsen reminded attendees of the University’s track record in sustainability and echoed the hope that other colleges and universities will join Sac State in partnering with Keep California Beautiful.

“We’re committed to keeping California beautiful,” Nelsen says. “Whether it’s biofuel – if you don’t finish something on your plate today, it’s going to be gasoline tomorrow in our buses around campus – or whether it’s chipping the trees that fall down, or whether it’s helping pick up litter, we are here to make certain that we have a sustainable campus and a sustainable world.”

The biofuel that Nelsen mentioned is produced in Sacramento State’s closed loop program, which recently received a Best Practice in Sustainability Award at the California State University Facilities Management Conference.

Sacramento State is no stranger to accolades for its sustainability efforts. The University is:

• One of just 21 campuses nationwide to make the Princeton Review's 2017 Green Honor Roll.
• The most sustainable campus in the California State University system and the third-most sustainable master’s university in the nation, according to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).
• Designated a Tree Campus USA by the Arbor Day Foundation; the University is home to more than 3,500 trees.
• The first CSU campus to host pharmaceutical collection bins at the campus pharmacy through Don't Rush to Flush and the first campus in the country to participate as a retail partner selling and exchanging refillable 1-pound propane cylinders through ReFuel Your Fun.

To learn more about the University’s sustainability efforts, visit csus.edu/aba/sustainability/. – Jonathan Morales