Green Office Program
Welcome to ECU Sustainability’s Green Office Program. Offices and individuals who choose to participate in the Green Office help ECU work toward carbon neutrality and reach its sustainability goals. This program is intended to take the guesswork out of campus sustainability and to provide resources so that all employees can do their part to reduce environmental impacts on campus.
About the Program
The Green Office Program has four “levels,” Seed, Sprout, Sapling, and Tree, starting with basic and easier sustainable behaviors and “levelling up” to more involved and more impactful actions. To achieve each level, participants must watch the training on Cornerstone and then score at least 70% on the following assessment. Participants must complete the previous level(s) to earn certification at higher levels.
Individuals and offices will take actions to achieve their certification as they learn about behaviors in the following categories:
- Energy & Water
- Food & Events
- Health & Well-Being
- Purchasing & Materials Management
- Recycling & Zero Waste
- Participation, Service, & Community Engagement
- Transportation
Certification
Before starting the program, offices will need to designate a primary contact person (their Green Office Ambassador) and contact us at sustain@ecu.edu to schedule their waste audit. This audit will provide data to make baseline comparisons, evaluate program effectiveness, and report outcomes. After this, at least 75% of office employees must become certified as individuals through the Cornerstone trainings and the assessment. The Green Office Ambassador will also complete the Cornerstone trainings and complete an assessment with a few additional questions about the office as a whole.
Individuals who complete the training and certification will receive recognition on ECU’s social media, a digital graphic to add to email signatures and faculty profiles, and stickers for their level of completion. If they become certified at “Sapling” or higher, they will be recognized in SustainECU’s “Sustainability Spotlight” in our monthly newsletter.
Offices that complete the certification process will receive the same recognition and awards as individuals, as well as recognition through articles published in the SustainECU newsletter, and will also be awarded a framed certificate to display.
Certification in the Green Office Program will expire after 5 years for individuals, upon which time the participant will be contacted to arrange for recertification via reassessment. Certification for offices will expire after 2 years, and the Green Office Ambassador will need to confirm that 75% of the total office employees are still individually certified to keep certification.