April 22, 2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Linda Dalton
(805) 756-2411

Cal Poly Announces Signing of Talloires Declaration on the Environment
During Earth Day Activities April 23, 24

SAN LUIS OBISPO – At the Friday April 23 Cal Poly Convocation on
Education for Sustainability, Cal Poly President Warren J. Baker will
announce that the university has joined Tufts University, Rutgers
University, Oberlin College, George Washington University, the College
of William and Mary and others in signing the Talloires Declaration, a
10-point pledge to make the campus a place where sustainable resource
use and environmental protection are practiced, improved and taught.

“Cal Poly has already begun much of the work detailed in the Talloires
Declaration,” Baker stressed. “The Cal Poly Master Plan, the Cal Poly
Land project, and the Campus Sustainability Initiative bear witness to
our dedication to creating an institutional culture of sustainability,
and we pledge to continue that work.

“As a polytechnic university, Cal Poly is uniquely positioned to focus
the attention of our many disciplines on environmental responsibility.
We are educating California’s future leaders, and we have a
responsibility to make sure they graduate with a high level of
environmental literacy.”

Cal Poly is the third California public university to join the Talloires
movement. UC Santa Barbara and CSU Chico are already Talloires
signatories.

The international movement began in 1990, when Tufts University convened
a conference in Talloires, France, where educational leaders voiced
their concerns about the accelerating degradation and depletion of the
world’s natural resources and created a document that spelled out key
actions institutions of higher education could take to ensure a
sustainable future.

The group developed a 10-point plan known as the Talloires Declaration
that has since been signed by the presidents of more than 300
universities around the world.

Linda Dalton, Cal Poly’s executive vice provost for planning, notes that
Cal Poly has already undertaken many activities outlined in the
Talloires Declaration.

Cal Poly provides education for environmentally responsible citizenship
through its educational programs in polytechnic and other emphasis
areas. For example, several colleges offer degree programs, minors or
other areas of emphasis, such as Natural Resources Management in the
College of Agriculture and Civil and Environmental Engineering in the
College of Engineering. In the College of Architecture and Environmental
Design, the interdisciplinary “Sustainable Environment Education”
emphasis provides exposure to principles of sustainability across the
college’s programs.

The Cal Poly Campus Sustainability Initiative, begun in 2000, has become
the clearinghouse for both continuing and new sustainability activities.
The CSI committee, which includes faculty, staff, administrators and
students, has met with all deans regarding future campus building
projects.

In addition, Dalton noted, Cal Poly is home to a number of learning
centers and institutes which advise industry and government on a variety
of projects. These include the Environmental Biotechnology Institute,
the Coastal Resources Institute, the Irrigation Training Research
Center, the Renewable Energy Institute, and the Evelyn and Harold Hay
project, which supports solar building design.

“Cal Poly is committed to solving problems created by outdated
technologies and to promoting both innovative solutions and successful
traditional alternatives,” Dalton said. “Students and faculty are
collaborating already in our laboratory courses and institutes, in our
Campus Sustainability Initiative and other projects to devise more
environmentally sensitive ways to meet society’s needs. Students,
faculty and staff are working together to operate the university more
sustainably through energy conservation, recycling and the use of
alternative transportation.”

For more details on Cal Poly sustainable building efforts, visit:
http://www.facilities.calpoly.edu/Facilities_Planning/campusprojects/projects/sustainability
/index3.htm. For more details on the Talloires Declaration and movement,
visit www.ulsf.org/programs_talloires_td.html.

- # # # -