This includes innovations in energy efficiency, waste reduction, transportation, purchasing, design and construction and clinical care.

Kristina Bair directs the UC Davis Health Sustainability Committee. The group works to create a resilient and sustainable health care model that celebrates the intersection between human and planetary health through community engagement and education.

“Sustainability is fundamentally about protecting and improving health,” Bair explained. “From energy and building design to food recovery and waste reduction, we’re finding innovative ways to reduce our environmental footprint while creating a more resilient health care system for our community.”

Together, these initiatives, which align with the Anchor Institution Mission, are earning UC Davis Health national praise.

National awards highlight leadership

UC Davis Health recently received several significant awards for its sustainability progress:

• SMUD’s First Clean Power City Business Champion Award

SMUD honored UC Davis Health with this award in recognition of the partnership between the two entities in the energy efficient design and planning of 48X and the Folsom Medical Care Clinic. The design innovations at these two facilities resulted in almost $200,000 in incentives, which created seed money for future sustainability improvement efforts.

• Arbor Day Foundation Tree Campus designation

The Arbor Day Foundation named UC Davis Health a 2025 Tree Campus for its commitment to using trees and green spaces to support human health, environmental sustainability and broader community well-being. This work includes expanding the campus tree canopy, planting drought-tolerant vegetation, eliminating synthetic herbicides and hosting community tree-planting events.

• Practice Green Health Emerald Award

UC Davis Health earned this award in 2025 from Practice Green Health, which recognizes outstanding hospitals with advanced sustainability programs. UC Davis Health also received 2025 Circles of Excellence recognition in five categories: food, sustainable procurement, water, transportation and green building.

Bair emphasized the importance that collaboration played in these successes. “The progress we’re seeing is the result of collaboration across our organization,” she said.

Sustainability in action

Examples of this collaborative sustainability work include:

• Expanding the tree canopy

In 2025, the UC Davis Health’s Grounds Department planted more than 500 trees across the campus. This enhances air quality, provides more shade in public areas, reduces heat and creates healthier outdoor environments in the surrounding area. 

• Diverting food to families in need

UC Davis Health’s Food and Nutrition Services donates excess prepared food through our partnership with COPIA, a resource that connects surplus food to those who need it most. In fiscal year 2024-2025, UC Davis Health donated 16,898 pounds of food. This combats food insecurity within our community and reduces the amount of organic waste sent to landfills — a major source of methane emissions.

• Reducing single-use plastics

The Sustainability Committee is also working to cut back on single-use plastics. These efforts include the design and distribution of a reusable utensil kit for UC Davis Health employees. The Reusable Flatware Initiative debuted at Scrubs East Café in 2025 and resulted in the distribution of more than 4,000 kits. As a result, nearly 9,000 fewer disposable utensils were purchased when compared to the previous year. The project will continue in 2026 with distribution at Lawrence Ellison Café in the Ambulatory Care Center.

One of the Sustainability Committee’s long-term goals is a fossil fuel-free future. The plan is to electrify the health system’s central plant by 2045 and purchase clean energy through SMUD. This would make UC Davis Health a zero net emissions operating campus, which would achieve a 90% emissions reduction, while improving air quality for the UC Davis Health campus and surrounding Sacramento community.

The Sustainability Committee will also host Earth Day events in April for staff and students, including events focused on green commuting and a sustainability walking tour.

Want to see UC Davis Health sustainability in action? Take the Virtual Walking Tour!

Additional information

UC Davis Health’s Anchor Institution Mission operates in full compliance with California’s Proposition 209, which prohibits discrimination against or giving preferential treatment to any individual or group in public employment, public education, or public contracting on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, national origin, or other protected identities. The AIM initiative also abides by federal anti-discrimination laws.

Each year, nearly 230,000 Americans are diagnosed with lung cancer and many learn of their diagnosis only after the disease has advanced. This late detection is a reason lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. But there is good news: Low-dose CT screening can find lung cancer early — when it is most treatable and even curable.

This national designation recognizes the cancer center for following evidence-based screening guidelines, providing coordinated follow-up care and supporting patients through every step of the screening and treatment process.

“We are proud to have UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center join the community of GO2 for Lung Cancer Centers of Excellence that is national in scope and local in impact,” said GO2 Chief Healthcare Delivery Officer Joelle Fathi. “Through the GO2 COE network of community hospitals, clinics, and academic and VA medical centers, we are fostering and supporting essential knowledge sharing and collaboration that brings national and global advancements in early detection, treatment and care close to home.”

This year, the award celebrates someone intimately connected to the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis. Aron King, a 2021 Master of Science in Leadership graduate and fourth-year PhD student in Nursing Science and Health Care Leadership, has been named a Young Alumni Award recipient.

King’s resume spans clinical leadership, community-building and scholarship, including the role of assistant nurse manager at UC Davis Health. Earlier this year, he stepped into a new leadership position as the Magnet Program director at Kaiser Permanente Antioch.

Along the way, he has become a visible advocate for health care representation and mental health. He has been a driving force within the Capitol City Black Nurses Association (CCBNA), an organization he helped grow from a small chapter into a nationally recognized community hub.

“Aron is an exceptional nurse, doctoral student, community member and role model for the profession of nursing,” said Associate Dean Piri Ackerman, who has worked closely with King in his academic and community pursuits. “He has an extraordinary ability to bring people together. He takes risks to open dialogue to accomplish his goal of increasing inclusion in nursing and advancing health equity.”

A leader who ‘calls people in’

King’s leadership is deeply aligned with the School of Nursing’s mission — especially its emphasis on optimal health for everyone, community connection and innovation.

“Aron exemplifies the core values of the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing through the relationships he builds in the community, his commitment to health for all people, including underserved populations, and the way he collaborates with people who are too often overlooked by traditional systems,” said Dean Stephen Cavanagh. “His work engaging Black men in wellness conversations reflects deep listening, empathy and collaboration with those directly impacted.”

That work comes to life through programs such as Barbershop Health Talks — a community education effort he helped create. These are spaces designed to meet people where they are and build trust through conversation, peer support and practical health education. King has seen how quickly the right setting can unlock engagement. It led to the focus of his dissertation, “Cut to the Chase.”

“Once you start sharing health statistics, the guys are like, ‘We need to get more information like this out there.’ It’s just a huge disconnect,” he explained.

What began as virtual programming for Black men during the COVID pandemic grew into sustained community momentum in barbershops, including turnout that surprised even him.

“I didn’t know if we were going to get people to come for group therapy at 6 p.m. on a Thursday night,” he recalled. “We had like 30 people show up, and I was like, ‘Whoa.’”

Among the fewer than 1% of Black male nurses in the nation, King shared his experiences on the national documentary, “Everybody’s Work: Healing what hurts us all.” He illustrated how he has taken a collaborative impact approach to diversifying the nursing workforce by demonstrating what can be done beyond the bedside.

‘I do it for the cause, not the applause’

King is quick to connect recognition to responsibility.

“All the awards that I’ve received, I hadn’t applied for. People nominated me,” he said. “It’s recognition of your impact and how you’re making a difference. But I do it for the cause, not the applause.”

That mindset, paired with mentorship and opportunity at UC Davis, helped transform early uncertainty of his professional motivations and personal “why,” into clarity of purpose.

“Health care doesn’t just happen in the hospital,” he said. “Health care is everywhere. I want to be the resource that I wish I had.”

As he prepares to graduate this June from the nursing school’s doctoral program, King is already thinking beyond the dissertation. His long-term vision is bold and, not surprisingly, centered on community.

“Instead of looking at how we could get health into the barbershop,” he said, “why don’t we bring the barbershop into the clinic?”

The award isn’t a finish line for King. It’s a signal that the work matters and that the next chapter should be even bigger. Something the alumni association surely recognizes.

Award winners will be celebrated at a gala on May 7 at the Walter Buehler Alumni Center.