BAE BioEnvironmental Engineering Lab Wins Climate Challenge
By Tyler Barzee
The BioEnvironmental Engineering (BEE) lab, headed by Professor Ruihong Zhang in the D
epartment of Biological and Agricultural Engineering recently won an award for the highest achieving campus lab team in the Cool Campus Challenge. The lab was presented the award by Camille Kirk (UC Davis Director of Sustainability) and Sue Vang (Engagement and Zero Waste Program Manager) at the UC Davis Sustainability Summit on May 31.
The Cool Campus Challenge is an online competition created by the University of California where UC campuses and teams compete by completing sustainable actions to reduce their energy, waste, and carbon footprints. The challenge is a part of the UC system’s goal to be the first major university system in the world to reach carbon neutrality by 2025. UC Davis finished in the top 6 UC campuses and reduced 1.8 million pounds of CO2e through 15,000 actions. The BEE Lab was the top achieving lab at UC Davis and finished the competition as the fifth highest scoring team overall. Seventeen lab members participated in the challenge, completing 462 sustainability-related challenges that directly reduced 87,255 pounds of CO2 emissions