Sustainability experts meet at UAB, seek green solutions for Birmingham

The Green Labs and Rheaply programs at UAB have earned a Department of Energy Better Practice Awards honor — one of only two universities to receive the award. Another recognition brings pro bono consulting on electrification of Blazer Express.

For the eighth year, UAB is recognized by the National Arbor Day Foundation for its work to nurture more than 4,400 healthy trees and engage students and employees in conservation. UAB also was honored for the fourth time with a Tree Campus Healthcare designation, which recognizes health institutions that make a mission-aligned impact on community wellness through tree education, investment and community engagement.

Want to explore a corner of campus that’s entirely off the electrical grid? Join UAB Sustainability for free tours of the UAB Sustainable Community 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Oct. 1. Located at the corner of 11th Avenue South and 17th Street, the community features the UAB Solar House, which is powered by an adjacent microgrid, plus a monarch butterfly waystation.

For the eighth year, UAB is recognized by the National Arbor Day Foundation for its work to nurture more than 4,400 healthy trees and engage students and employees in conservation.

For its work to promote bee conservation and growth on campus, UAB has been named a Bee Campus USA by Bee City USA, which recognizes, supports and encourages pollinator conservation in towns, cities and counties across the country.

UAB aims to generate 20 percent of its electrical energy from renewable resources and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2025, and student and faculty governance groups are supporting the initiative.

Royalty has come to campus in the form of two queen honeybees and their subjects — about 40,000 worker bees, and a second monarch waystation has been installed outside Honors Hall.

For the seventh year, UAB is recognized by the National Arbor Day Foundation for its work to nurture more than 4,400 healthy trees and engage students and employees in conservation.

Come next summer, migrating monarch butterflies will flutter onto campus, to a new meadow that will provide nutrition and protection for the insect fighting to survive its annual migration period.

The newest project from UAB’s Bloom Studio is brightening up campus — this time from the Solar House and Sustainable Neighborhood at the corner of 11th Avenue South and 17th Street.

The three-year-old Green Labs program, once a cohort of just 18, anticipates 120 UAB labs will have My Green Lab certification by December — the largest number of any organization, academic or otherwise, worldwide.

It’s predicted that 68% of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050. As urban areas trend toward tech use and digitization, the coronavirus pandemic is revealing both potential pitfalls and opportunities for growth, says human rights scholar Tina Kempin Reuter, Ph.D.

It’s officially springtime at UAB, and new growth is blossoming from Sterne Library, to Collat, to the residence halls.

For the sixth year, UAB is recognized by the National Arbor Day Foundation for its work to nurture more than 4,400 healthy trees and engage students and employees in conservation.

Want that office event you’re planning to have a big personality while leaving a small environmental footprint? These recommendations from UAB Sustainability can help you make adjustments to ensure your events are as green as possible.

When the wrong items are discarded in recycling bins, the whole lot could get sent to the landfill. Let’s work together to make sure that doesn’t happen.

The Green Office Program can help employees identify opportunities to reduce energy consumption and waste and be better stewards of fiscal and environmental resources on campus.

Peggy Biga and Shantay Williams, two of more than 70 Sustainability Ambassadors, channel their passion for green practices into positive change within their units.

Melody Gillezeau, project manager for sustainable project development, wants UAB to set new standards to inspire Birmingham and beyond.

UAB, with its more than 4,400 trees, is being recognized as a Tree Campus USA for its work to promote healthy trees and conservation among students and employees.

Join UAB’s TRIP Lab for an information session with CommuteSmart 2-3:30 p.m. Jan. 23 in Hill Student Center 314.

Still deciding how to give back this year? The UAB Tree Fund helps maintain tree diversity, replace damaged or diseased trees and add to the overall tree population on campus.

An emphasis on community engagement, clean energy, grounds and waste management and more will help ensure UAB is an even better steward of financial and environmental resources and institutional role model.

Passionate about recycling, clean commutes and renewable energy? Join UAB Sustainability’s Ambassadors program and help ensure your  campus unit has an investment in and exposure to sustainability efforts across UAB.

The list sounds simple: Wear recyclable gloves. Unplug lab equipment. Defrost freezers. Use recyclable batteries. But if you have most all the labs in a major UAB research facility checking those boxes at once, it could mean big savings — in energy and dollars.

Employees who want to use one of the 16 newly opened electric car-charging stations can obtain a special permit from UAB Parking and Transportation. 

UAB has partnered with Alabama Power Co. to install employee-only electric vehicle-charging stations — adding to the eight public-access ones that already exist on campus.

Plants that attract bees, birds and butterflies are beautiful and necessary for sustaining native ecosystems.

A new incentive to buy and renovate homes in the Five Points, Glen Iris and Titusville communities helps the university, its employees and neighbors.

UAB Sustainability wants to help employees be greener with events throughout Earth Month dedicated to helping UAB faculty and staff become their most sustainable selves.

UAB’s Red Mountain Project enables faculty to help students understand how sustainability connects to the world around them. 

Celebrate Arbor Day and UAB’s dedication to Alabama’s native trees 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Feb. 23 on the Sterne Library Plaza. See eight new redbud trees planted on the library grounds and take home free tree seedlings.

The Cahaba River Society conferred its 2018 Watershed Conservation Development Award on UAB for its Express Parking Lot, which was designed and constructed to reduce stormwater runoff and reduce water pollution.

Eighteen research labs are the inaugural cohort of UAB’s Green Labs initiative, a plan to reduce energy consumption in more than 2,000 UAB labs. Apply to be a part of it.