University Director of Sustainability Steve Mital@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=staff&d=person&b=name&s=Steve+Mital@@ and interim President Robert Berdahl awarded the office of Campus Planning and Real Estate@@http://uplan.uoregon.edu/@@ on Thursday the first Green Office Certification@@http://www.greenlinepaper.com/green-office-certification/info_14.html@@ for applying sustainable practices to their everyday work.
“I think it is appropriate that we have green offices here — it is the University color after all — but it means something very different in this context,” Berdahl said. “This represents a lot of thoughtfulness on your (CPRE’s) part and a deep concern for the environment.”
This is the first year of the Green Office Program at the University and it stems from similar ideas of third party certification at other universities across the country. The Office of Sustainability@@http://sustainability.uoregon.edu/office-sustainability@@ aims to certify various offices across campus on their level of sustainability with a bronze, silver, gold or platinum ranking earned through a point-scoring system.
The program was officially launched last week after a test period in which eight campus offices adopted the challenge early in order to meet qualifications. Offices are encouraged to take part in the program by checking out the program scorecard on the website to see which prerequisite practices are already implemented and which still need to be met. Each practice that is applied earns office points in six categories: prerequisites, energy, materials management, purchasing, transportation and events.
These categories comprise a list of 42 actions including things such as using rechargeable batteries, carpooling to work, using composting receptacles and keeping the thermostat at a reasonable temperature.
Mital said that they wanted to make it challenging for offices to attain a certification yet still make each ranking attainable if pursued vigorously. Of the 200-plus different offices on campus, he hopes to get 10 percent participation in the first year of the program.
“We didn’t want to make it easy to make platinum. We wanted to make it a reach,” Mital said. “We want to reward folks for all the wonderful things that they are doing every day.”
CPRE administrative assistant Marie Swarringim@@http://uplan.uoregon.edu/staff/staff.html@@ was the one who applied for the certification for her office. She is proud to be one of the first offices to receive the gold ranking and hopes to improve her office’s green certification in the future.
“Everybody had already been very conscious about being green and also about what their habits are, but it brought things to our attention that are easy to change that we hadn’t really thought about,” Swarringim said. “For our office to become more green there are several things that are really simple that we are going to start doing, like bringing our own cups and water bottles.”
For more information on how to apply to be Green Office certified, fill out a scorecard. Offices that complete a scorecard before the first Friday of spring term will be arranged to have their certificates delivered during the University’s celebration of Earth Day.