Sustainable Office Certification Program Problem Need The Campus Sustainability Interns worked over the 2014-15 year to improve the Office Sustainability Certification system. In order to improve campus sustainability, people associated with the campus need to be educated and inspired to act on environmental issues. The Sustainable Office Certification program works to change the campus culture to be more sustainable by influencing the faculty and staff’s actions. Because these individuals serve as role models for students, the program created a ripple effect thereby further shifting the campus in the direction of sustainability. To create this ripple effect, the Sustainable Office Certification program works to reduce the environmental impact occurring due to office activities and then recognize the accomplishment of departments and individuals with incentives and certificates for Green and Gold Knight Certification levels. Green Knight Certification is available for departments with an accumulation of 40 points, and Gold Knight Certification is awarded for departments with at least80 points. There was a previous certification system in place before this project. However, that system had low participation rates and did not inspire conversation between individuals and office departments. Thus, we worked to create a more engaging system. The project educates and engages faculty and staff in all aspects of campus sustainability (energy, solid waste, and food and hospitality). The combination of behavioral changes and

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increased awareness along with collaboration between offices and individuals confirms the significance of the project’s environmental impact. Project Summary/Background This project works to increase participation in the Sustainable Office Certification Program, recognize those on campus who actively promote sustainability, and increase the campus awareness and progress of sustainability. The previous certification system included a sustainability checklist that was typically completed by one member of the department. Below is an image of a checklist for Energy:

Figure 1: Old System Green Certification Requirements As a result, it was more of a means of documenting their current environmental efforts rather than inspiring them to be more sustainable. In order to create a program that improves campus sustainability, we began by brainstorming and researching model programs. In particular, we researched similar programs at the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University. Key features of their office sustainability programs included:    

Implementation through an Excel application process An expectation that a majority of the people in the office to pledge to change habits, Multiple levels of certification based on a points system, Sustainability events, and a green team (someone in each department who is required to go to a sustainability meeting every month

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

Resources, like how-to videos and pdfs, to help people accomplish the challenges. After reviewing other programs, we decided to implement a monthly challenge awareness

campaign. Each monthly topic has educational information along with challenges (seminars, videos, activities, and quizzes) to keep participants actively engaged in the program. The program is based on points, which are discussed in the Methods section. To encourage more participation, our program also incorporates social media like Facebook, emails, and a website. Small incentives are used as positive reinforcement for participation and success, as it increases the likelihood of the recognized action happening again (Jones, 1980). Additionally, it “generates positive energy” (Rosenberg 2013). Thus, we determined positive reinforcement to be the most effective way to change the practices of faculty and staff. We partnered with local organizations and businesses to provide rewards to individuals and departments with the most involvement. Our team’s approach, featuring monthly challenges and incentives, was chosen in order to engage people over an extended period of time and reward habits to become more sustainable. Relationship to Sustainability The Sustainable Office Certification program directly promotes campus sustainability. To begin with, registered participants pledge to be conscious of their environmental impact. The program then encourages faculty and staff to make more ecological choices under the premise that it will benefit them in the near future and that it also demands less resources from Earth. This movement works under the holistic idea that if all community members make a moderate effort to improve their ecological impact, our combined impact will be more significant than if only select individuals make large efforts. By influencing faculty and staff, we also indirectly influence the rest of the community.

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Every challenge was designed to directly reduce an office or individual’s environmental footprint as well as educate the community on sustainability. Some challenges included performing an inventory of office energy consuming appliances and reporting their findings and improvements, watching a video on proper recycling practices starring the sustainability interns, and taking a quiz on recycling. Each challenge was designed to encourage conversation and office engagement and to promote the Office Sustainability Program. The program also created a long lasting dialogue about sustainability within the participants’ personal lives as well as at work and at campus. A number of challenges focused on individuals sharing sustainability issues with their colleagues because both collaboration and competition are essential components of an engaging program. These sustainability tips were posted on our Facebook page to spark dialogue. In fact, a conversation on Keurig coffee cups was even initiated and maintained by the participants in reaction to their new knowledge about office waste. Considering that the program addresses all aspects of the faculty and staff’s work life, it isn’t surprising that the program has had noticeable impacts on our community. Those participating and those who aren’t, such as students, have noticed the faculty and staff’s

behavioral

changes

and

also

recognized

accomplishments.

their

Figure 2: Social media created a campus-wide sustainability conversation

Materials and Methods In order to make the Sustainable Office Certification program possible, we work hard over the course of the 2014-15 year as Campus Sustainability Interns. Our work was separated into a

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few categories: research, design, preparation, publication, and reflection. The Campus Sustainability Interns met biweekly to set program goals, deadlines, and plans. It was crucial during these meetings to define project tasks to complete things in a timely matter. There were many steps and inputs into the program, and many pieces that required detailed planning. Month by month we worked to develop challenges pertaining to our main categories. Roughly five individual challenges, two bonus challenges, and five department challenges were created for Energy, Solid Waste, and, Food and Hospitality. An example of a January challenge is shown below, and the remaining energy challenges for January are included in the Appendix. Department Challenges Do you know how you consume electric energy in your office or office suite? Complete the inventory of office energy consuming appliances and report that you are in great shape or that you made changes over the month to reduce the electricity demand from your office appliances.

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Figure 3: Example of department challenge Challenges included tasks, educational videos, pledges, inventories, and seminars. We were responsible for building the resources for these challenges, which include creating signage, holding and taping seminars, creating quizzes and monitoring responses. Part of this was also maintaining Clarkson’s Sustainable Office Certification Program website where participants find information about challenges, links to surveys and videos, and general information about the program. As participants completed challenges, they responded to surveys created by the interns in order to document their points. Each month, participants can claim up to 20 individual points and 5 bonus points. To ensure a fair distribution of points, the total points (individual and bonus) claimed by the total number of participants per department was divided by the total number of participants in that office. This allowed us to take the average points per participant per office and add it to their office total. The rest of the office points were determined by the department liaison. Every month, the liaison would claim points for the office challenges. Each office could claim up to 20 points to

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be added to their total points per individual. An example for the Aerospace Studies department is described below:

Example:

𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑠 = ( ) + 𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑂𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑂𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑠 199 𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑠 ( 5 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑠 ) + 36 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑠 = 75.8 𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑠

The point tally for the departments is shown in the appendix. These points will allow offices to achieve Green Knight Certification at 40 points, and Gold Knight Certification at 80 points. The Green Knight Certification is meant to acknowledge participants who make a reasonable effort to improve their sustainable office behavior whereas the Gold Knight Certification honors participants who make an extraordinary effort. Participants also had an opportunity to achieve recruitment bonuses to inspire conversation and promote the program. A key aspects of this program is communication. Encouraging participants to talk about their challenges and their progress helped us reach more individuals and departments. The Institute for a Sustainable Environment has a Facebook page where participants posted information and updates. We used this to post links to videos, remind participants to fill out forms, and add a fun way of communication. We also had one of our interns facilitating our [email protected] mails, which was our main form of communication to update participants, receive bonus challenges, and send out reminder emails to keep everybody motivated. Each intern had specific roles, including building and adding content to the website, running the [email protected] emails and the Facebook Page communication, tallying points, and survey development. We had two advisers who were a great deal of help to us fine tune our challenges, and decide on the best methods of facilitating out project. We had an immense amount of community support and communication. Overall, the program was extremely successful and we are happy with the outcome we received.

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Results, Evaluation and Demonstration With this project, our main goal was to improve the existing Office Sustainability Certification program and increase the number of people registered and actively participating. In previous years, the Sustainable Office Certification Program only reached 41 offices and an additional 11 separate individuals. Because only one person in each office had responsibility for completing the checklist (figure 1), the previous program effectively reached 52 individuals. This year, we are proud to announce that we were able to outreach to 43 offices and a total of 262 individuals. Out of the 2015 participants, 41 percent (14) accomplished a Green Knight Certification while 32 percent (11) accomplished a Gold Knight Certification. Offices and individuals worked hard to achieve these goals and continue to uphold the standards set by them. Throughout the entire program, we had steady participation in all monthly challenges. Figure 4 shows a few examples of the types of challenges that people responded to at high levels. Challenge Type

Topic Solid Waste

Seminar

Food Waste and Hospitality Solid Waste

Inventory Food and Hospitality

Description

Percent Participation

(Individual) How can we take advantage of all of technologies’ benefits? Attend a seminar on how to use technology to reduce paper consumption. (Department) “Local Food in the North Country” Seminar featuring a local, sustainable food expert Gloria McAdam from GardenShare, along with Aramark director Manny Manno. (Department) Inventory the number of trash and recycle bins in your department. Improve your department waste collection system by having centralized bins for each recycling and landfill trash throughout the department. Place a green sticker on doors to let custodial staff know they do not need to collect waste from those offices. (Department) Take an inventory of your department materials regarding food and hospitality. Fill out this form and share the results with the department.

57% of February participants (113 total February individuals) 68% of March individuals (101 total March individuals)

Activity

Energy

(Individual) Set all of their electronics (laptops, desktops, printers, etc.) to energy save and sleep modes

Pledge

Energy

(Individual) Sign a pledge to turn off their lights when leaving a room for any period of time.

Figure 4: Challenge participation rates

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78% of offices (23 total February offices)

73% (22 total February offices) 96% of Energy individuals (137 total Energy individuals) 90% of Energy individuals (137 total Energy individuals)

In addition to participation rates, we were able to record members’ feedback. For instance, for the Food and Hospitality Bonus point challenges, we asked participants to watch a video about keeping food waste out of a landfill. We then asked what they learned from this video and obtained great responses that will stay with our participants. Some of these responses include: “The garbage that is put in landfills need oxygen to decompose and when it doesn't have oxygen it instead releases methane gas into the atmosphere. Also, that when you dispose of food properly it continues the life cycle (it goes back into the ground where more grass, trees, and food can grow).” - M. Webster “I had no idea food waste didn't properly decompose when in a landfill.” – T. Risk “ …the garbage patch really just astounded me. After watching this, I saw references to this in another video I watched at home. The fact that we make this much garbage is thoughtprovoking and scary.” – T. Ferero Encouraging participants to comment on videos they watched was one of ways we sparked discussion among participants. As individuals become more aware, especially when they are shocked by the statistics, there will almost always be a conversation about what is happening and how it can be prevented. It is important to look for this feedback and address it, with hopes that participants will alter their everyday lifestyle to reduce the environmental impact of their actions. While it is difficult to calculate a return on investment for this project, the impact can be measured in two ways. Challenges successfully addressed and inspired savings in energy, paper usage, food waste and collection, material disposal, material purchasing, and many other categories. By reducing the amount of paper used, and office supplies purchased, participants save the University money. The second payback method is through communication and discussion. By involving all of the faculty and staff with this program, it has grown larger than we had expected. People are talking about the challenges and the videos they are watching. Participants are posting to Clarkson’s sustainability Facebook page about ideas, concerns, and accomplishments they have or have made.

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People are becoming more aware of their actions, and the actions of those around them. We believe this shift in culture is the first step to address our environmental crisis. Based on program participation, it is fair to say that people care about sustainability, and they care about their impact on the environment. Knowing this, our team has the ability to take this project and not only continue it with faculty and staff but also to expand it to laboratories. The program would have to be scaled for such a large group of people and revised to ensure smooth operations. Long-term goals for this program may even involve expanding the program to local campuses including SUNY Potsdam, St. Lawrence University, and SUNY Canton. This would not only be a great way to unite the four campuses, but also to strengthen our sustainability efforts as a whole in the North Country. For our presentation of this project, we will be using a PowerPoint. This is the most effective way as it allows us to show all of our challenges, the spreadsheets we used to tally points, and responses from participants including Facebook posts. We will display certificates, videos, posters used for the challenges, and other materials we used throughout the program to give the audience a whole view of our project and the impact it had on our campus community. Conclusions The Sustainability Office Certification Program has allowed us to increase the level of sustainability on our campus. Throughout the process, we have learned important lessons about increasing environmental awareness and improving our schools’ ecological impact by changing people’s behavior. Creating interactive, repetitive, and manageable challenges can change behavior. They engage people, challenge people, and keep people motivated. We accomplished this by breaking down our challenges into distinct monthly campaigns. We also realized how important social recognition and incentives are when trying to motivate people. We were able to

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incentivize both offices and individuals by incorporating different prizes and rewards into our program. We built in social recognition through our “Sustainability at Clarkson” Facebook page that allowed participants to see their progress, articles, events, and reminders. Participants used social media to talk about the program and sustainability. Overall, by considering what motivates people while creating our program, we created an engaging and successful program. We will consider expanding this program to local institutions and laboratories. Appendix Example of January Challenges

Example of Point Tally - Aerospace Studies Points

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References Certify your Office as Sustainable. (n.d.). Retrieved November 6, 2014.

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