The following email describes an online session about various Green Lab Certification Programs.

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From: Vandenbergh, Lydia Bodman
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2022 8:35 AM
To: Vandenbergh, Lydia Bodman
Subject:BTAF Sustainable Lab Programs Presentation and Discussion - Feb 24th

As Higher Education Institutions develop their Climate Action Plans, one opportunity repeatedly arises: culture change in our approach to research. The US Department of Energy estimates that lab buildings consume anywhere from three to ten times the energy and water of administrative and classroom buildings and generate high amounts of single use plastics and hazardous wastes. One question is, how to change the culture without compromising the integrity of the science? 

Members of the Big Ten and Friends Network are encouraged to join together on February 24th at 11am EST to learn how three universities are promoting change in their campus labs using three variations on a green lab certification program.  

• Ken Keeler, from the University of Michigan, will kick off the meeting describing the University’s decade-long successful program that combines a lab self-assessment and staff visit. Over 200 labs have worked through this program, but it requires substantial staff time. Ken will describe their exploration to tap efficiencies.  
• Next is Tim Lindstrom, who leads the University of Wisconsin at Madison Green Lab Program, which is similar to the Michigan’s assessment model, but integrates a student internship component to support the labs’ efforts. 
• University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Nick Ciancio will showcase his four-year effort collaborating with MyGreenLab’s certification program, a unique pilot that UAB is eager to expand. 

The session will conclude with time for discussion with the panelists. Please register to join in this inspirational presentation and exploration of culture change.  

Register here  

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information to join meeting. We are purposefully limiting the invitation to BTAF’s members to encourage a fruitful discussion, but we will record the session and make it available to share with other colleges and universities.  

Lydia

Lydia Vandenbergh (she/her)
Associate Director of Employee Engagement and Education
Sustainability Institute

Penn State University

The Pennsylvania State University campuses are located on the original homelands of the Erie, Haudenosaunee (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora), Lenape (Delaware Nation, Delaware Tribe, Stockbridge-Munsee), Shawnee (Absentee, Eastern, and Oklahoma), Susquehannock, and Wahzhazhe (Osage) Nations.  As a land grant institution, we acknowledge and honor the traditional caretakers of these lands and strive to understand and model their responsible stewardship. We also acknowledge the longer history of these lands and our place in that history.

Check out our programs:
sustainability.psu.edu/greenteams
sustainability.psu.edu/greenpaws

The Annual Meeting for Big Ten & Friends (BTAF) will be held on July 22, 2021. Inviting all members, this meeting will discuss the following, as outlined in a message from Lydia Vandenbergh, the Associate Director of Employee Engagement and Education at Penn State University (See the attached file to view the agenda:)

Greetings Big 10 and Friends Members,  

I hope you all have been able to take some time off after such a chaotic and challenging year. It is times such as these that we need to come together and support each other, sharing best practices and brainstorming solutions to barriers. Thanks to all who completed the pre-meeting survey in June to help us plan our July 22nd annual meeting, from 9am to noon EST, that will pursue those two goals, concentrating on several topics that the respondents highlighted:  

• Staff training (GOCP)  
• DEIJ connections with sustainability 
• Student co-curricular engagement 
• Engaging communities 
• Connecting health with sustainability 
• Sustainability curriculum pedagogy 

Please register for the Annual Meeting by July 21st. We recognize there may be some who cannot attend, and we encourage you to designate an alternative representative if possible. We will record the session and send out the recording and abbreviated notes to all on this list.   

One of our first items for discussion will be BTAF leadership, specifically whether we should have term limits for co-chairs, to encourage rotating the responsibilities among the BTAF universities. Lydia will be stepping down next summer as co-chair and Amy is willing to step down this August to enable the staggered transition of co-chairs. Please consider volunteering for this role. It does not require a significant amount of time and involves acting as coordinators for our network, specifically:  

• Scheduling periodic meetings 
• Creating agendas, invitations, etc.  
• Facilitating affinity groups: launching, defining scope, finding co-chairs, advertise to the group 
• Coordinating body with AASHE 
• AASHE webinar planning assistance, if needed 
• Maintain Share-Drive on Google – meeting minutes, contacts, files.  

We will keep the nomination form open until July 21st and hope that someone will join the fun of supporting the Big Ten and Friends group.  Also, if anyone has any changes for the BTAF membership list, you can find it on our Google Drive.  

We have scheduled the meeting for three hours and based on your responses, are changing the format this year to emphasize brainstorming sessions on the above topics, rather than updates from each campus. All participants will be able to self-select one of three brainstorming sessions in two rounds and we hope that each group can select a note taker who will report-out for the group.  The full agenda is attached.
 

At the end, we will have time to explore other topics that members highlight.  

Looking forward to connecting with you all and learning from your experiences. 

Lydia and Amy  

A couple of updates were sent out on March 29, 2021 regarding Big Ten & Friends Sustainability (BTAF.)The following are two messages sent on behalf of Lydia Vandenbergh, the Associate Director of Employee Engagement and Education at Penn State University:

Message #1:

Friends,

Great to see many of you at our last call and despite the pandemic, sustainability is progressing at our campuses. The minutes (prepared by MSU's Laura Young) are evidence of that fact. Emanating from the two-hour discussion are a few obvious next steps.

1. The group voted to hold routine discussions and instead of a long meeting scheduled to coincide with the virtual AASHE conference, the group is interested in a longer discussion in the summer. So Amy and I have scheduled calls for the following dates. Please mark your calendars and I will send out an invitation closer to the date.
   
   1. Thursday, May 20th from 9 to 11 EST
   2. Thursday, July 22nd from 9 to noon EST (3 hours)
   3. Thursday, September 23rd from 9 to 11 EST
2. Over the past year, we have seen the success of our members collaborating to benchmark best practices for the Green Office Certification programs. This and the anti-racism group's effort demonstrates the value of working together as we face increased challenges of budget and staffing changes. Several topics arose in the call that attracted interest for new affinity groups. What Amy and I have seen work successfully is for two people to co-chair the group. Start with a grounding session and then decide on priorities. Once these are set, identify sub-leads for the smaller working groups. This shares the workload and covers multiple topics in depth.
3. The topics and the people who expressed interest are outlined below with yellow highlighting. Amy will be in touch to organize the Athletics and tree groups and I will kick off the reusable container team. We don't have a lead for the Times Higher Ed assessment.
4. After our gathering, Brenda Van Cleare of OSU wrote wondering if anyone is interested in water reduction strategies. If this topic is of interest, contact Brenda at vancleave.13@osu.edu
5. Want to connect with other members of the BTAF network? The master list resides on Google and everyone has access. We have listed all the affinity groups that spurred interest in our meetings. Please visit the list to ensure that your information and affinity group enthusiasm is correct.
6. Ready for some inspiration? Grab a mug of whatever and read through the updates.

Message #2:

Greening Athletics, Sports for Climate Action/UNFCCC

• Interested individuals: Julie Cahillane, Northwestern; Sinead Soltis, University of Illinois-UC; Shane Stennes, University of Minnesota; Tom Reeves, OSU; Amy Bulter, MSU lead

Tree Policies and the roles they can play in branding, ghg reduction strategies, and conservation

• Amy will take lead to schedule follow up call. Let Amy know if there are 1-2 students you’d like invited. Can bring in arborist, professors that does research in this area. Interested individuals Julie Cahillane, Northwestern; David Cullmer, Penn State; OSU – Tony Gillund to identify rep; Jake McCulloch, UW-Madison; University of Minnesota – Shane to identify representative; Makayla Bonney, Indiana; Lisa Sanzenbacher, UIC

SDGs in the curriculum and Times Higher Ed reporting - the latter is similar to STARS, but emphasizes research and curricular activities more than AASHE.    

• Affinity Group Interest and Discussion Areas
• Interested schools: Shane Stennes, University of Minnesota - Doing THE assessment and SDGs in curriculum come up as well.; Anna Oetting, Nebraska. 

Reusable Containers - lots of interest in this topic

• A lot of interest in chat on this topic. Mary Leciejewski (OSU) willing to lead. Interested individuals: Carla Iansiti, MSU; Makalya Bonney, Indiana; Allison Mihalich, Notre Dame; Tom Reeves, OSU; Shane Stennes, UMN, Anna Sostarecz of Penn State and Julie Cahillane (NW)

The Big Ten and Friends Sustainability group is collaborating on a Prospectus about how sustainability helps the universities accomplish several of their missions.  Each participating school was asked to note their high-level and visionary goal for the Prospectus and the Big Ten group as a whole.  Sustainability staff at UIUC offered the following goals:

What are your goals for using the outcomes of the Big Ten Prospectus at your institution?  “The University of Illinois Provost Office (budgetary authority) is interested in evaluating the appropriate funding model for our sustainability efforts, and we hope to use the outcomes from the Prospectus to help inform them about the importance and benefit of the overall sustainability efforts, and how it ties directly to the campus mission.”

What potential (think big!) do you see for our network as a whole?  How can this work help us leverage regional impacts, move all of our institutions forward, etc.? “We have been making great strides in sustainability, but campus continues to elevate other mission priorities over sustainability when achieving these goals is considered cumbersome or unfeasible. We hope that through this Prospectus, the Big Ten and, subsequently, campuses across the nation will see that sustainability is a mission-critical goal, and will not proceed with any action until it can be made sustainable. Could we also partner on various efforts, from Carbon Credits to recycled paper purchases to RECs, etc. to save money and effort? We should also update the website at http://greenbigten.msu.edu/index.html and https://wikispaces.psu.edu/display/Big10EnvStew/Big+Ten+Environmental+St....”

Dear all, Happy Friday! A couple of updates: 

• Partner Spreadsheet: Based on your feedback, I've created a google spreadsheet where you can share your notes, questions, progress, and metric selections with each other. I'll be including my notes from meetings with each of you as well.
• Check-in Call: We received another great suggestion to hold a call part-way through the process to support collaboration and communication among partners. We're shooting for the week of April 18th.
• Executive Leadership Summary: Next week, look for a 2-page executive summary of our progress on the Prospectus. We hope this document will help you initiate conversations with executive leadership allies at your institutions. More soon!

Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions about the process. 

Best, 

Emilie (and Denice and Michael)

Dear Partners,  We hope this finds you well. After several conversations with the Metrics Working Group (see below for previous email detailing this process), we’ve developed a list of metrics aimed at measuring sustainability’s contribution to identified executive leadership priorities. We have framed the data request below with the following in mind:

• Time and resources are scarce: In every conversation regarding data collection, regardless of the forum (e.g., Metrics Working Group meetings, conversations with partner institutions, pre-AASHE meetings), we’ve heard concerns about the time and resources a data request might require. With this in mind, we’ve worked very hard to develop: 1) a request that is reasonable in size and customizable based on the unique context of each of our schools, and 2) a collection window that is reasonable given how busy the spring is for all of us.
• Process is more important than products: This request reflects the same investment in process and experimentation that has characterized the Prospectus to date. We have framed the data request to help us collectively explore the feasibility of collecting new metrics, the availability of data, and our preferences when offered choice. Instead of mandating a common set of metrics, we have prioritized a process that can provide us with strong examples of how/what data might be collected.  We believe this approach will best prepare us for conversations with executive leadership about how to move forward together.

With these conditions in mind, we are asking each partner institution to do the following:

• Based on the collection window (now-May 27, 2016), pick one metric for data collection within each priority area—six in total—from the attached spreadsheet. For each area, please choose between the following types of metrics:
  • Foundational quantitative: These are quantitative metrics most schools can reasonably collect in the window provided based on our estimates. These metrics may be new or they may rely on existing STARS data.
  • Aspirational quantitative: These are quantitative metrics we expect only a few schools will be able to collect in the window provided based on our estimates. We hope the innovators among us will already have started collecting (based on previous needs or projects), or will be willing to begin collecting data for these challenging, but potentially powerful metrics.
  • Create your own quantitative metric: Here we’re encouraging those of you who have not had the chance to provide input through the MWG or pre-AASHE meetings to develop or contribute innovative metrics for collection. We ask that you only use this option for strong, well-developed, outcome-oriented metrics.
  • Qualitative prompts: Here we have provided several prompts suggesting features or profiles on relevant figures, programs, or initiatives that help make an anecdotal case for sustainability’s contribution to mission level priorities. We encourage you to tell strong, bold, innovative stories here.
• Ensure your overall metric set includes the following:
• At least three quantitative metrics,
• At least one quantitative metric developed during the Prospectus process (outlined in the spreadsheet), and
• As many qualitative metrics as you like.
• Define sustainability (i.e., sustainability-related) broadly and based on your best judgment. Use existing definitions (e.g., STARS) where they make sense or create new ones. For example, you may find it necessary to define sustainability-related disciplines differently than sustainability-related co-curricular activities.   .
• Define your collection window for each metric based on your data availability. We’re not worried about comparability, so the period over which data was collected can vary from metric to metric.  
• Document how and why you’ve made each collection decision.
• Be creative and document your process:

Again, you will find the metrics options attached. (The second tab lists definitions of all important terms.) Tomorrow, we’ll be holding a call from 2-3 PM EST to field initial questions. RSVP here to join. Emilie will be reaching out to each institution individually beginning next week. You will also find a calendar below roughly outlining the remainder of the project.

We look forward to hearing your questions and feedback about this evolving process. And, please remember to RSVP for the Big Ten and Friends Sustainability Group Meet-up at the Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference on April 3, 2016.

Best,

Denice, Michael, and Emilie

TIMELINE:

• March 10: Data collection begins
• March 16-27: First partner institution check-ins with Emilie
• March 23: Optional: Begin preliminary conversations with executive leadership allies (more information to come)
• April 3: Pre-SSCC Big Ten and Friends Sustainability Group semi-annual meeting
• April 18-29: Second partner institution check-ins with Emilie, Denice, and Michael
• May 20: Preliminary Prospectus draft from Planning Team due to partners for feedback on structure/format
• May 27: Data request due
• June 1-July 1: Collaborate with partners on plans to utilize Prospectus findings at each institution (more information to come)
• June 17: Second Prospectus draft due to partners for feedback
• July 8: Final Prospectus draft due to partners
• (TBD): Convene Big Ten executive leadership gathering through CIC

This project was previously called "Big Ten & Friends Environmental Stewardship Group" and had the following description:

"Big Ten & Friends Environmental Stewardship Group began in 2009 as a group of individuals working together to discuss challenges and to work toward solutions to common environmental problems. The group meets in the spring and fall by video conference. Topics of discussion include energy conservation, financing strategies, transportation, renewable energy, and efficient laboratories. In addition to the schools of the Big Ten Conference, the University of Notre Dame, University of Chicago, University of Texas, University of Nebraska, and the University of California schools were also represented."

We are writing with an update on the Big Ten and Friends Sustainability Group’s effort to develop a prospectus with the working title “Aligning Sustainability with Leadership Priorities”. We are pleased to inform you that AASHE has agreed to handle financial arrangements for project, including invoicing all partner institutions and paying the consultant. We have reframed the original memorandum of understanding document into a scope of work, which we are attaching here for your review.

~ Michael Gulich, Director of University Sustainability, Purdue University