By: Katelyn Koenig
UC System
University of California Berkeley is tied for third with Lund University in Sweden in the QS World University Rankings for Sustainability in 2025. Along with several other UCs, Berkeley reached a platinum rating with AASHE in 2023.
Sustainability on the University of California’s ten campuses and five medical systems is coordinated system-wide by the UC Office of the President. Multiple UC campuses have living labs or other entrepreneurial spaces for students. I first covered the “living lab” setup in Colleges, Now 1 because the University of Toronto also provides living labs for students.
To describe it briefly, living labs are an opportunity for students and faculty to apply sustainability knowledge to their own campuses through research and projects. When implemented at different universities, these labs allow students to innovate and implement solutions to specific emissions problems. They can test the effectiveness of their plans on a smaller scale before graduating, while also improving the lives of other students and community members on campus.
Among the UCs, UC Santa Barbara had a living lab project to research how oil spills affect marine life when there was a pipeline spill near Refugio State Beach. Researchers from the university took charge to help clean the spill, which one of the researchers and his lab saw as an opportunity to also discover the specifics of how oil disturbs natural ecosystems.
Another example of living labs are those offered by the Innovation Institute for Food and Health at UC Davis. The institute itself focuses on improving human health and industrial practices as it relates to food. For example, the institute researches nutrition on a molecular level, and innovates environmentally-friendly farming practices. The institute offers a living lab program where students from undergraduates to post-doc researchers spend a summer implementing their research with entrepreneurial start-ups, live market research, and more.
The institute greatly supports student involvement within its own structure of research and entrepreneurship, but through these grants and fellowships, students gain the opportunity to implement their own research projects and innovations into the agricultural and food industries while still students, all the way down to undergraduate work.
UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley, of course, can’t be left out. Its Sutardja Centre for Entrepreneurship offers students the “X-Labs” to build their own research focused on sustainability practices. To the university, “X” refers to all new technologies and niche industry areas where people have a need, but current solutions are little to none.
One such lab is the Alternative Meat X-Lab which researches technology into alternative protein sources, particularly plant-based and cultivated animal products. Not only do researchers examine how to produce environmentally friendly meat substitutes, they also have looked into how sustainable such efforts are compared to other avenues to reduce our current dependence on conventional meat.
Even outside of these institutes, Berkeley encourages students and researchers alike to focus on a more sustainable future. The Green Initiative Fund offers grants for winning proposals for sustainable-focused innovations. However, this fund is exclusive to the campus itself. The fund focuses on projects that reduce waste and energy usage on campus, implement sustainable alternatives that improve environmental justice in various ways, and even restore habitats and ecosystems. Anyone who wins—whether students, staff, or faculty—not only gains funds to expand their proposal, but actually gets to implement their plan in campus life.
Taking Action Now
The focus isn’t just on the future, but on the present, with efforts to improve local sustainability efforts and knowledge. As such, the UC System provides an encouraging example to bring sustainability plans to the present. So many environmentally-focused goals and initiatives, particularly among universities, look towards the future.
Many universities integrate sustainability efforts into student-life, but this primarily focuses on the academic sphere. The UCs, however, encourage students to take their knowledge and theories into the real world even before graduation. With the climate crisis only growing, such efforts are invaluable to not only make our world a more sustainable place, but to also empower students with the possibility of taking action now, not later.