Maurice J. Gallagher Jr. Hall, LEED Gold-certified home of the UC Davis Graduate School of Management
Announcing the Global Sustainability Index
To coincide with the Governors' Global Climate Summit 3, UC Davis is announcing plans to create a new Global Sustainability Index, which will chart progress toward global balance. The Global Sustainability Index (GSI) will be derived from a dashboard of specific environmental, economic, and social sustainability indicators. A team of scientists based at the University of California, Davis will lead the effort in developing the index and communicating trends. This dashboard of sustainability indicators-including a composite global sustainability index-will track progress in sustainability over time and help inform regional, national, and global policy initiatives, as well as provide important information to scientists, industry and the general public.
For more information, please download the Global Sustainability Index PDF.
ABOUT UC DAVIS: Sustainability
UC Davis is a global leader in sustainability-related research and instruction, applied technology, and transformative projects and programs that advance knowledge and serve as models for the world. Campus institutes such as the Agricultural Sustainability Institute, John Muir Institute for the Environment, Energy Institute, and the Institute for Transportation Studies provide outreach, education and collaboration that help forge new policies, practices and technologies.
The California Lighting Technology Center, Energy Efficiency Center, Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle Research Center and other UC Davis research groups are identifying and developing technologies to provide industry and consumers the means to operate more sustainably while maintaining competitiveness and affordability. The UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship and UC Davis InnovationAccess in the Office of Research facilitate the development of new products and the partnerships needed to move the best ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace.
The Center for Regional Change brings together faculty across campus and regional stakeholders for solutions-oriented research on community development dimensions of sustainability including affordable housing, youth development and environmental health.
On campus, UC Davis presents a model for sustainable change through its innovative on-campus practices in areas such as energy efficiency programs, thermal energy storage, transportation and waste management. The campus provides new sustainable models through projects such as UC Davis West Village, which will be one of the world’s first zero net energy mixed-use communities, and Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science research and educational winery and brewery facility, which will be the world’s first brewery or winery to reach LEED platinum status when it opens in December. UC Davis is also finding sustainable solutions in healthcare, such as through telemedicine, which increases the quality and efficiency of rural healthcare while reducing transportation emissions.
UC Davis has numerous opportunities for students to get involved and learn about sustainability, including a new undergraduate major, Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems.
The UC Davis community is grateful for your participation in the summit and for the support and collaboration it receives from its partners. To learn more about UC Davis sustainability initiatives, visit our Sustainable 2nd Century Web site.
Academic strengths
- Energy
- Energy efficiency
- Advanced lighting and cooling systems, water use efficiency
- Renewable energy
- Biomass, geothermal, solar, wind, and renewable systems integration
- Transportation energy
- Sustainable fuels and advanced vehicles and transportation systems
- Nuclear energy and diagnostics
- Fusion science and engineering, nuclear materials, neutron imaging, isotope generation
- Materials science
- Basic plant sciences, nano-structured materials, catalysts, new PV materials
- Environment
- Lifecycle analysis, carbon management, energy-climate-water interactions, modeling and simulation
- Policy
- Sustainability standards, low-carbon fuel standards, achieving sustainability goals locally and globally
- Society
- Economics, behavior, socioeconomic implications of energy development
- Energy efficiency
- Sustainable Food and Agriculture
- Agricultural systems
- Nitrogen dynamics
- Improved production practices
- Agricultural economics related to sustainability and health
- Food security and safety
- Human and animal nutrition and health
- Environmental Sciences and Stewardship
- Land use
- Water and watersheds
- Climate change
- Biodiversity and conservation
- Environmental and human health
- Environmental and Regional Planning
About UC Davis
For more than 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has 31,000 students, an annual research budget of almost $700 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges -- Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science -- and advanced degrees from six professional schools -- Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing. UC Davis Extension provides more than 4,000 forward-thinking, career-focused courses for working professionals in all 50 states and more than 70 countries.
Contact Us
For more information about joining with UC Davis as a partner to innovate and advance knowledge on sustainability, please contact the following UC Davis offices:
- The UC Davis Office of Research helps facilitate and strengthen research relationships between UC Davis and government and industry. The office is also charged with reviewing extramural research awards. Phone: (530) 754-7679
- UC Davis InnovationAccess, a unit of the UC Davis Office of Research, helps connect UC Davis research to the marketplace. InnovationAccess facilitates research alliances with industry and supports the commercialization of UC Davis technologies in early stages of development. Phone: (530) 754-8649
- The UC Davis Center for Entrepreneurship runs programs that help campus researchers explore future business opportunities that stem from their work, design future research aimed at practical applications and build skills necessary to communicate the value of their research. The center's research addresses effective practices for early-stage innovation and entrepreneurship. Phone: (530) 752-9397
- The UC Davis Clinical and Translational Science Center is an incubator for collaborative scientific discoveries that improve human health. Through programs focused on pilot and collaborative studies, translational technologies, resources and methodologies, and community engagement, among others, the center seeks to turn silos of research into medical discoveries, bringing new treatments to patients faster. The center works with corporations and other private institutions to advance research. Phone: (916) 703-9121