UCLA’s sustainability history demonstrates bold promises but backpedaling when deadlines arrive.
The quiet abandonment of the 2016 Carbon Neutrality Plan, which claimed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2025, reveals UCLA’s lack of accountability and transparency surrounding policies on sustainability.
While the University’s plans seem promising in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and working toward energy efficiency, they need robust enforcement mechanisms to be effective.
Remnants of the 2016 plan still existed on UCLA Sustainability’s Climate & Energy website as of Nov. 25. However, by Nov. 26 and after asking a UCLA spokesperson for comment on the plan – the page was updated to include the decarbonization plan as the current policy.
Carbon neutrality goals are trying to be forward-looking, but these goals change over time, and specifically, net zero goals have changed over time, said Tyson Timmer, a doctoral student at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and researcher for the Open For Good Initiative for the past five years.
The UCLA Open For Good Initiative researches sustainability within S&P 500 companies through public records to ensure transparency.
It is a general trend that sustainability reports are outdated, difficult to decipher and focus on the positive aspects only. Initiatives like Open For Good provide transparency that should already be embedded into the system.
“The inconsistency in reporting comes from the lack of standardization,” Timmer said. “The history of corporate financial metrics has a long series of legal and regulatory things that happen throughout history to come up with the level of standardization.”
There is a connection to be made between the actions made around sustainability at these large corporations and at UCLA.
UCLA transitioned away from its 2016 Carbon Neutrality Plan to a 2023 decarbonization plan, which states that all 10 campuses and six academic health centers would use 100% carbon-free electricity. The plan placed a framework and timetable to fully decarbonize by 2045 and hit reductions in emissions by 2030, 2035 and 2040, according to an emailed statement from a UCLA Sustainability spokesperson.
But trusting these new frameworks set to be completed 20 years in the future is difficult.
UCLA fell short on executing plans from a decade ago.
The Decarbonization Study Final Report explains that the failure to implement climate action plans was largely due to a lack of funding. It urged UCLA to increase accountability.
These outlined plans seem substantial. But they require stronger systems of oversight.
The framework involves three priority projects at UCLA: an electric chiller at UCLA’s cogeneration facility, an industrial heat pump and the Center for Health Sciences nodal plant.
To ensure enforcement and accountability, UCLA has a Climate Action Task Force of faculty, technical staff experts and students, the UCLA Sustainability spokesperson said in the statement. A cross-departmental structure would ensure alignment and a draft plan would be submitted to the UC Office of the President in December 2025 for input and feedback in winter 2026, the spokesperson also said in the statement. The final report will be published in spring 2026, the spokesperson added.
However, this Climate Action Task Force should have existed for the initial 2016 Carbon Neutrality Plan.
The UC has updated these dense policies numerous times to adjust to circumstances.
However, given that it has the largest budget of any UC school, UCLA should be leading in change and doubling down on existing projects rather than proposing new ones. UCLA Sustainability should continuously release updates on its online websites.
“UCLA’s energy and carbon policies have a twofold potential to reduce climate change,” said Ariella Kandkhorov, an executive board member of the Undergraduate Students Association Council Facilities Commission and student appointee on the UCLA Campus Sustainability Committee, in a written statement. “First, as one of the nation’s leading public universities, UCLA sets a precedent for committing to sustainable practices by implementing infrastructure and standards that directly reduce campus emissions.”
Plans include electrifying the entire BruinBus fleet, attaining LEED certifications for new and old buildings and diverting waste as part of UCLA’s Zero Waste goals, Kandkhorov, a fourth-year international development studies and sociology student, said in the written statement.
UCLA has the funding, expert planning, design models and responsibility to lead the UCs in climate action. What it lacks is consistency, radical transparency and accountability.
As we continue to see strange weather changes like cold snaps in Memphis, companies and big contributors will be forced to adapt as a matter of risk assessment, Timmer said.
UCLA has the opportunity to make a big difference as an organization and should draw from this internal research and development.
“The Institute of the Environment and Sustainability offers Sustainability Action Research (SAR) courses for students, along with faculty-led independent research and numerous other projects – UCLA Smart Grid Energy Research Center (SMERC) and UCLA Heat Lab come to mind – that aim to optimize our energy and carbon usage,” Kandkhorov added in the statement.
Students have the opportunity to get involved in climate solutions through classes and research. Given the immense potential impact of UCLA climate and energy plans, there must be cohesive, uncompromising policies and realistic goal-setting.
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