In the Fall of 2014, UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks announced “a transformational model for expansion of our educational and research activities in a global context,” at what is now the UC Richmond Field Station and adjacent property. The Chancellor envisioned “a new form of international hub where an exclusive group of some of the world’s leading universities and high-tech companies will work side-by-side with us in a campus setting.”
We at IEE, with our engineering colleagues at Integral Group, helped to plan the infrastructure and other aspects of the built environment for the Campus. IEE’s work can be read here. It shows how climate-related regulations, land-use and transit planning models, along with new structures and metrics for financing, can implement leading-edge engineering to reduce energy and water use, called Net Zero. We have demonstrated how these separate elements can coalesce to form a new social ecosystem for leading public policy and investing in the post-carbon society.