
Rethink Your Drink
Our Initiative
The UC HBI’s goal is to decrease the consumption of SSBs on our UC campuses, and increase the availability of tap water as an alternative.
The UCSB HBI Research Group is dedicated to understanding the environmental, health, social justice and financial impacts of beverages on the UCSB campus. Our initial focus has been estimating the net environmental impact of reducing SSB and bottled water sales on campus and increase tap water accessibility. We will also be estimating the reduced risk of diet related diseases if SSBs are substituted with tap water. In Fall 2020, we are organizing conversations about UCSB's beverage environment and how it can be improved to support environmental health, human health. We plan to estimate the reduced health are costs due to improved health over time, as a result of these changes, and the environmental benefit of reduced health care, like reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
The UCSB HBI Implementation Group, led by Katie Maynard in the Sustainability Program, is responsible for surveying the campus beverage environment, and arranging installation of new water filling stations.