Electric vehicle will propel waste recycling at Cal State Fullerton; two other universities receive comprehensive fleet audits
AUGUSTA — Club Car®, a brand of Ingersoll Rand® and a global leader in commercial utility, personal-use and golf vehicles, recently announced the recipients of its Campus Sustainability Grants. Cal State Fullerton will receive a customized Club Car Carryall electric vehicle. And two additional schools — Tennessee Technological University and Northern Arizona University — will receive complimentary fleet audits.
“Sustainability continues to be a defining issue for colleges and universities,” said Kathryn Sterba, higher education leader at Club Car. “The response to the Campus Sustainability Grant Program, and breadth of ideas for aligning transportation and climate action was inspiring. We’re proud to work with the recipients and help move their environmental efforts forward.”
According to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), sustainable fleet management can lower fuel costs, improve air quality and reduce vehicle procurement and maintenance costs. However, colleges and universities often overlook the environmental and fiscal impact of maintenance and related vehicles due to competing priorities. Launched in July 2019, Club Car developed the grant program to connect sustainability and fleet decision-makers and help them overcome the challenge of finding the time and resources to explore transportation options.
Schools across the U.S., from large public institutions to private colleges, applied for the grants. Club Car selected the recipients based on their commitment to sustainability and vision for how campus transportation contributes to reaching related goals.
For example, Cal State Fullerton, the most populous campus in the California State University system, plans to use the Club Car Carryall electric vehicle to advance its pilot food waste recycling program. The university currently collects more than 2,000 pounds of pre-consumer food scraps each week from the Gastronome, the campus dining hall kitchen. The collected material is processed then transported to an organics recycling facility where it is turned into compost. The goal is to expand the program into the dining hall, using these food scraps for composting at the school’s Fullerton Arboretum. The Carryall will provide an emissions-free utility vehicle for transporting the food waste.
“With more than 241 acres of property and 40,000 students, we have a large campus to sustain and maintain,” said Danny C. Kim, Cal State Fullerton’s vice president for administration and finance. “It’s an operation that requires a fleet of almost 270 vehicles. So, switching to electric where possible has an immediate and lasting impact, gains that are compounded when it comes to vehicles that support efforts such as recycling. As we continue our environmental leadership, the Club Car grant will help further integrate transportation and sustainability.”
Club Car and Cal State Fullerton are collaborating to define the needs and select features for the vehicle, which will be custom built. For the schools receiving the fleet audits, the company will work with university personnel to conduct a department-by-department review of current vehicles, survey when and how those vehicles are used and analyze the environmental and economic impact of updating and right-sizing fleets with electric utility vehicles.
Club Car makes Carryall utility and transport vehicles, including a range of electric vehicles, for a wide variety of functions on campus — from building management to landscaping to athletics. For details, visit ClubCar.com or follow @ClubCar on Twitter.
