Introducing California State University Northridge (CSUN)

California State University Northridge has a rich history beginning in the fall of 1956 as the San Fernando Valley campus of the Los Angeles State College of Applied Arts and Sciences. Soon afterward, the California Legislature passed an assembly bill, which decreed that the campus would separate from its parent college on July 1, 1958—the founding date of the present university. The college was renamed San Fernando Valley State College. In June of 1972 the college was renamed California State University, Northridge, known affectionately and for evermore as CSUN.

CSUN has now become a leader and trend setter when it comes to the adoption of new technology and paving the way in Sustainability. As one of the biggest Universities in the CSU system, they have been working in sustainability in one capacity or another since the early 90’s with the pace picking up over the last 10 years. Already tracking diversity, equity and inclusion on their website, and wrapping up a 10 year sustainability plan that was over 100 pages long, CSUN wanted to start 2023 fresh with a new way of gathering data and engaging the campus.

The Challenge

After just closing out their original 10 year plan, CSUN wanted to make sure the new plan moving forward was really intentional and efficient. Like many universities and organizations across the board, data aggregation was a major challenge for CSUN. Kicking off a new sustainability and ESG plan, the university needed a way to track and report on goals and KPIs across a lot of different people and departments. Initially, the university had started implementing some energy efficiency measures (EEM) to help reduce their carbon footprint and were doing scenario analysis around these EEMs to see what projects made sense not only sustainability wise, but financially. To track these measures CSUN used manual processes with an excel spreadsheet paired with powerBI to track and visualize the data. However, while these systems worked, they were not secure, data quality was at risk given that anyone could change formulas or inputs, and as data sets grew larger, data management became difficult and less sustainable overall. 

It had become clear that complex, error prone, excel processes, manual tracking and limited PowerBI reporting was no longer what the university needed. With a new plan ready to go, it was a major goal that this plan would be a “living” plan and that requires real-time insights and agility to bend and change throughout the years. As many universities understand, funding is also a challenge in this area. CSUN needed a way to combine sustainability with “the bottom line”.

Overview of Challenges:

• Disparate Data Sources

• Data Management

• Manual, error prone, inefficient, and Excel based processes.

• Inability to connect with existing systems

• Limited Reporting

• Inability to do scenario analysis
  
  

The Solution 

To address challenges around their complex Energy Efficiency Measures excel sheet, data aggregation, and reporting, Sustaira built a proof-of-concept application from the Excel spreadsheet that runs all the calculations CSUN was previously using in the background. This application has been named, Energy Efficiency Scenario Analysis.  

Having the calculations automated through the application eliminates the risk of human error or changes; all the user needs to do is fill in the values they need and the calculations will do the rest. The visualizations that CSUN was once getting from PowerBI are now built into the application as well. Lastly, the Energy Efficiency Measure data that they were previously using Excel spreadsheets to store and manage, is securely stored within the application’s database. 

It didn’t end there, however. Throughout CSUN’s journey with Sustaira, this Scenario Analysis application became an entirely new application called the Sustainability Planner which is a more complex scenario analysis application around net zero planning and finances, and included not just energy efficiency measures, but water, waste, natural gas, and more. This takes the first proof-of-concept application a step further allowing CSUN to create scenarios across all of these variables, and then once a scenario is approved, the projects around these scenarios feed back into the Sustaira Goals and KPI Tracker application that CSUN has also adopted along side Carbon Accounting. CSUN is now set up with a set of solutions to help meet their goals. 

Overview of Features & Functionalities

• Centralized data hub around Sustainability data

• Net zero analysis including finances

• Goal & KPI tracking

• Fast and easy online

• Tracking STARS Credits 

• Adjust to changing requirements such as changing costs, EEMs or time.

• Integration with other apps on the platform

• Upload via Excel 

• Easy Integration via web services and APIs

Ultimately, Sustaira has added additional functionality beyond just what the Excel spreadsheet and PowerBI were capable of doing. CSUN now has the ability to further specify scenarios by selecting different start dates for each project or variable. This application allows users to assign projects to specific locations, times, even changing escalation rates to adjust to an ever changing economy. Adjusting all of these variables allows the user to understand things such as project cost, energy savings, and even emission reductions. From there CSUN can make these scenarios actionable and live, through the goals and KPI tracker application where they can track progress, assign users certain tasks and ensure they are making progress on their living sustainability plan moving forward.

This Sustainability Planner application communicates directly with Sustaira’s Sustainability and ESG Goals and KPI Tracker application. CSUN is able to create projects and action items based on a scenario and take it from a hypothetical situation, to an actionable plan. Once an action is completed, the linked scenario will be archived automatically ensuring that they keep their database clean. Lastly, Sustaira created a reporting page that can be accessed by anyone with the link, so the CSUN sustainability team can share their progress without having to create reports themselves. This application is one piece of a set of solutions that CSUN is able to leverage. With The Sustainability Planner tied to the Sustiara Goals & KPI Tracker and the ability to expand in Carbon Accounting, CSUN is set up to track, report around, and eventually achieve net zero. 

Delivered Value: 

• 24/7 Tracking, Transparency, and Scenario Tracking

• Elimination of Excel Spreadsheets and manual processes

• Foundation and set up for next phase, e.g. Goals and KPI Tracking and Reporting

• Delivery time Proof-of-Concept: 3 Days with one resource

• Delivery Time total: 24 Days with one resource