Home

LACCD Gold Creek Ecological Reserve

We connect classrooms, campuses, and communities to make environmental equity a living part of education.

The Sustainable Environment Institute (SEI) is a faculty-led, district-wide initiative dedicated to advancing environmental sustainability across the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD).

In partnership with the District Academic Senate, we bring together all nine LACCD colleges to ensure students, faculty, and staff have access to the tools and resources needed to build environmental awareness and take action.

SEI coordinates the efforts of the nine LACCD colleges so that students, faculty, administrators, and staff have access to programs, courses, activities, and resources that foster environmental awareness and action.

Since our founding in 2010, SEI has collaborated with community colleges throughout the region, as well as the UC and CSU systems, USC, LAUSD, and other K–12 programs. At our core, we are educators who care deeply about the state of the planet and believe in empowering our students to create a more sustainable future.

We help faculty bring sustainability and environmental equity into their teaching, creating opportunities across the district to connect, share, and learn together.

What we do

SEI’s mission is to advance environmental education and engagement. We support faculty in integrating sustainability and environmental equity into courses across disciplines, and we provide the district with a wide range of opportunities to connect and learn:

Events

Explore workshops, talks, and learning opportunities designed to help faculty embed environmental equity into their curriculum. Check out our Spring 2026 speaker series.

SEI Spring Seminar Series

The City of Los Angeles Post-Fire Recovery Efforts, and the Climate Action Plan

Randall Winston — Deputy Mayor of Infrastructure and Climate Resilience, City of Los Angeles

Deputy Mayor of Infrastructure in Los Angeles discusses all major climate related projects including post fire recovery, the Climate Action Plan for the City of Los Angeles and other major projects

SEI Spring Seminar Series

Intersections of Innovation: Climate and AI in California’s Community Colleges

Carla Grandy — Senior Advisor on Climate and Lead Climate Fellow California Community College Chancellor's Office

A discussion about the significant increase in energy and water use as a result of proliferation of existing and new AI data centers. How do Community Colleges address this?

SEI Spring Seminar Series

What’s That Stuff In My Water? PFAS and Water Quality

Max Aung PhD — Assistant Professor and Co-Director of the Translational Research Core

An opportunity to learn about PFAS and the research being done to address the health issues they create- with a focus on drinking water

Enviromental Equity Education at SEI-LACCD

Learn how Los Angeles Community College District is advancing climate action, environmental equity, and sustainability through district-wide commitments and education-focused initiatives that support students, faculty, and communities.

Post

ASCCC Rostrum Spring 26 : The Importance of Environmental Equity Education

Environmental crises impact everyone, but they do not impact everyone equally. Disproportionately, low-income and working-class communities of Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and people of color are hardest hit. Therefore, members of the primary demographic that the California community colleges serve are likely to experience the highest impact of climate chaos.

Post

A New Blueprint for Environmental Equity Education: The SEI Demonstration Project

The Demonstration Project embeds climate literacy and environmental equity into everyday teaching—moving beyond standalone lessons to create lasting, cross-disciplinary change. Through faculty coaching, collaboration, and experiential learning, SEI is building a scalable model for climate education across higher education.

Explore LACCD

Discover distinctive places, programs, and resources across the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) that support learning, discovery, and connection beyond the classroom.