The HHP ADR Office is Green Office Certified!

The ECU Sustainability Program is happy to announce the most recent office to earn the Green Office Certification: ECU’s HHP Office of Research Development and Administration. Our Green Office Certification is earned through participants actively making efforts to improve sustainability in their lives and workspace. The Sustainability Program provides a credit worksheet for guidance through this process. Through their efforts to embrace sustainability, meet with representatives from ECU’s Sustainability Program, and fill out their credit worksheet, the HHP ADR Office is Green Office Certified!

Before Starting

Before starting the program, offices need to designate a primary contact person and obtain commitment signatures from 75% of their staff. We also require offices to set up an information center (like a bulletin board or file in Teams) with sustainability materials provided and contact the Sustainability Outreach Specialist to schedule their energy and waste audits. We can also do a presentation for offices before starting to provide information and encourage participation.

The HHP ADR Office accomplished these prerequisites after inviting ECU Sustainability to present to their office and was enthusiastic to get involved. Even before working with ECU Sustainability, the HHP ADR Office made efforts to be a more sustainable workplace. Most of the participants recycled and were informed about materials recycled on campus. Many already strove to reduce their waste, use natural lighting when possible, and made sure lights were turned off in common areas and meeting rooms when those areas were not in use. Even when the office provided disposable plates for meetings and other events, they sought out compostable serveware and plan to look into reusable options in the future.

Getting Certified

Because the HHP ADR Office was already aware and making an effort as a group, they scored high on the initial overview of their credit worksheet and just needed guidance with a few things. ECU Sustainability was able to provide them with deskside recycle bins and assist in getting their shredded paper recycled as well.

The office had questions that helped spotlight initiatives and areas of need at the Belk Complex as a whole, such as a lack of composting options and electric vehicle chargers. Input from offices about the need and desire for improvements like these are crucial to improving sustainability across campus and showing ECU Sustainability where our efforts, knowledge, and resources can help other offices.

Congratulations HHP ADR Office!

We enjoyed working with this enthusiastic office to make ECU a greener campus!

If you have questions or are interested in pursuing the Green Office Certification for your office, feel free to reach out to us at foxki23@ecu.edu or 252-328-6652.