Campus survey promotes new Green Office Certification Program

April 25, 2013 | UToday
By Casey Cheap



The Green Office Certification Program will be coming to an office near you.

A new survey is part of the University’s Sustainability, Energy, Efficiency and Design Initiative and was written by Brooke Mason, UT interim sustainability specialist, and Matt Repka, a senior majoring in environmental studies and intern. It was created to see how sustainable offices are at the University.

Employees interested can share information about their offices by taking the survey.

The UT Green Office Survey will be used to determine which campus offices are conserving energy, recycling and reducing waste.

“There are a number of little things you might not think have a big impact, but they do,” Repka said. “They can be as small as energy-saving light bulbs, washable mugs instead of Styrofoam cups, turning off lights or unplugging appliances.”

The program is modeled after similar efforts at Bowling Green State University and Duke University. The certification program will give campus offices an incentive to become more eco-friendly. Each office that opts into the program will get a certificate that can be displayed.

Any office on campus is eligible to take part in the survey. It was written broadly to include both smaller, single staff or faculty member’s offices and larger complexes of offices, such as department offices.

“Measures for smaller offices can include reasonable temperatures if the office is climate-controlled, the brightness of computer screens, or whether or not appliances are plugged into a power strip instead of the wall,” Repka said.

Results from the survey will be used to create tiers for the Green Office Certification Program.

Those interested can take the survey at http://utole.do/greenofficesurvey.

Click to access the login or register cheese