The third regional California Renewable Energy and Storage Technology (CREST) conference was held at CSUN on November 12, 2016. Rosalba Gonzalez, Field Representative for the Office of Senator Fran Pavely, presented Dean S.K. Ramesh with an Environmental Sustainability Award in recognition of CSUN's outstanding efforts in this area. The award highlights CSUN's commitments to reducing waste by 80% by 2020 and to reaching climate neutrality by 2040. It also supports efforts such as the "Brown is the New Green" campaign to reduce campus water use, as well as the integration of sustainability into not only operations and infrastructure, but also education and research.
Dr. Sudarsan Rachuri from the Department of Energy was the plenary speaker at the CREST Conference. Dr. Rachuri is also the Program Officer for the $70 M Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute, which is based at UCLA. The Institute includes CSUN as well as five other CSU campuses.
