Certified Green Office Program

The first iSEE initiative to engage the entire community in a campuswide commitment to sustainability is the Certified Green Office Program, launched in FY15.  Through this program, offices make a pledge to reduce their use of resources and improve overall sustainability in their day-to-day office practices.  Small actions make a big difference when many take those small actions.  In the first year of the program, 25 offices of various sizes signed up for the program.  During FY16, the Certified Green Office Program will be focused on adding more campus units, with a target of 50% participation from full-time campus staff by FY20.

Existing Outreach Programs

There are various existing outreach programs that campus supports already.  These include the local Urbana-Champaign Energy Star Challenge[1], Champaign County Sustainability Network (CCNet)[2], the Sustainability Seminar Series[3], and national competitions such as Campus Conservation Nationals[4] and RecycleMania[5].  Campus could work to increase awareness and participation in these programs, through a staff person dedicated to being the face of campus sustainability outreach.  This employee would be a part of iSEE and serve as the primary point of contact for anyone interested in working with campus to support a sustainability event.

Metropolitan Climate Action Plan

Additionally, campus could work with the local governments to establish a Metropolitan Climate Action Plan (MCAP).  The MCAP would be a written document, perhaps in the form of an interagency agreement, aligning the sustainability and climate objectives of the local governments.  These include at a minimum the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the City of Urbana, the City of Champaign, and the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District.

Guest Speaker Resource Base

As a recognized leader in sustainability, our campus gets numerous requests for guest speakers to visit off-campus sites and present on issues related to sustainability.  Campus could establish a resource base of guest speakers, willing to present on sustainability related topics.  There could be a mechanism for identifying people to include in the guest speaker list and a database of prepared sustainability presentations to be shared or modified as needed.  The outside agencies or groups could both review the list and submit a request for a speaker at their specific event.

[1] http://ucenergychallenge.com/

[2] http://www.champaigncountynet.org/

[3] http://www.istc.illinois.edu/about/sustainability_seminars.cfm

[4] http://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project/campus-conservation-nationals-ccn

[5] http://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project/recyclemania