Climate Hero Lifang Chiang

As part of the Cool Campus Challenge, we’re asking participants to spread their admiration for fellow climate crusaders — while earning points for their team! This week’s Climate Hero is Lifang Chiang, nominated by Matt St. Clair.

Chiang’s career is at the forefront of sustainability. A research strategy and portfolio manager for research and graduate studies, she has helped produce the Bending the Curve summit and report as well as the upcoming California Collaborative for Climate Solutions (C4S) report and summit. She’s also secured impactful grant funding from the state for UC researchers.

Building a sustainable life

Chiang’s passion for her professional contributions towards climate change has extended to her life outside UC.

“Since 2014, I have been motivated by UC’s Carbon Neutrality Initiative to strengthen my personal commitments to achieving climate solutions,” she says. “My family of four is aiming to achieve a renewably powered, low-carbon home, embracing the ethos of cost-efficiency and DIY spirit. We wish to live and to model sustainable middle-class living, which approaches sustainability neither as an elite endeavor nor one which needs to crimp comfortable and fulfilling lifestyles.”

For other families seeking a similar lifestyle, Chiang shares her strategies and wishlist:

• The environmental impacts of natural gas drilling, production and delivery are of growing concern. As our current appliances near-end-of-life use, we are electrifying our appliances, e.g., transitioning to water and space heating, using an induction kitchen stove rather than a gas stove and choosing an electric dryer to replace one with a gas source.
• We are investigating alternatives for financing and installing rooftop solar panels and — spurred by UC researchers — emergent solar thermal heating and energy storage technologies.
• In the future, we hope to install a greywater system for toilets and garden, etc.
• Eventually, we’d like to replace our 17-year old gas car with an electric or hybrid vehicle — or else adapt to living without a private car.

Building community through sustainability

Chiang also enjoys sharing her passion for green living with others. In recent years, she enjoyed participating in a UCOP-wide Staff Assembly-hosted Earth Day event at a Lake Merritt estuary, where a group of UCOP employees engaged in a park clean-up and planted native species.

“Inspired by the Provost’s recent call for a year of service engagement, I’m looking forward to helping shape a number of exciting sustainability-related speakers and events here at UCOP,” she says. And, staff members who enjoy book clubs take note: Chiang is on a long list of public library patrons awaiting a copy of David Wallace-Wells’ “The Uninhabitable Earth.” Once she’s read it, she would enjoy connecting with colleagues to discuss.

Nominate a colleague

Congratulations to Lifang Chiang for her nomination as a Climate Hero! To recommend a UCOP hero, visit the “All Actions” page on the Cool Campus Challenge site and choose “Highlight a Hero” to recognize them. Nominees will be entered into a prize raffle and may be featured in Link!

Plus, remember to send a special CCC Gratitude Gram to express your admiration.

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