Green Office News

As we are wrapping up this fully virtual year, we would like to say thank you to the 40 plus people who participated in the Home Office Assessment Challenge! Having to transition from certifying offices in person to creating a virtual assessment was an adjustment for our team and we appreciate everyone who participated in the challenge. Additionally, thank you to those who attended one of our Sustainability Certificate Program Workshops this year and we look forward to continuing to do more education and outreach next year. 

Last month our team members Kaya and Ellie started undertaking individual projects that we would like to highlight. 

Kaya has been researching cogen plants around Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. She is currently working on creating a website about the UCSC Cogen Power Plant in order to make the details of the plant more easily accessible. 

Ellie has started working on a Bring Your Own Cup initiative for all of the campus cafes. This would include a universal discount for bringing your own cup in order to incentivize individuals to reduce waste. 

We are excited about our new projects that will advance sustainability on campus and more information will be available as our undertakings develop. 

On behalf of the Green Office Team, we would like to thank all of those who participated in the Home Office Assessment Challenge during Fall and Winter quarter. Additionally, we would like to congratulate our three highest scorers Elliot Campbell, Sierra Anderson, and Lucas Gasperik for their exceptional home office sustainability. 

The Home Office Assessment Challenge will be ending soon on March 12th, so make sure to complete the challenge soon and spread the word in order to be eligible for a Patagonia gift card! Furthermore, our team is also able to do in person certifications for any campus offices that are operational during this time. If your office would like to be certified please email us at greenoff@ucsc.edu. 

The Home Office Assessment Challenge is still running so make sure to participate before the end of winter quarter for a chance to win a Patagonia gift card. Additionally, the Green Office Team has the ability to do an adapted Green Office Certification with only one campus office assessment. If you would like to certify your office please email us for more information at greenoff@ucsc.edu. 

The Home Office Assessment Challenge is up and running and the details of the challenge can be found here. The challenge will run until March 12th and the highest scoring individual will receive a $75 gift card to Patagonia and second and third place will receive a $50 gift card. Share this challenge with your friends and check the ranking site to see how your home office compares to others! 

A new year has started and the Green Office Team is excited to get back to work! This year we plan on continuing the Home Office Challenge, providing resources for those who are looking to make their home office sustainable, and lead sustainability workshops. Keep an eye out for updates and new challenges this year.

With this year coming to an end we wanted to recap some of the accomplishments we’ve made. During fall and winter quarter we certified seven offices, reaching 174 program participants. In addition, we had two sustainability workshops during winter and spring quarter respectively and we wanted to thank everyone who participated! Lastly, we have just concluded our Home Office Assessment challenge with over twenty people certifying their home offices and reporting their scores! Thank you all for being understanding during this uncertain time and participating in our challenge. Next year, be on the lookout for more future engagement opportunities similar to the Home Office Assessment Challenge!

The Green Office Program has some exciting news! 

Because of the outbreak of COVID-19, we have been working on ways to provide helpful tools for everyone to make their home office more sustainable. We have made updates to our website to include a resource page for home offices and as of May 5th, we have launched our Home Office Assessment Challenge! This challenge brings our Green Office Certification into your homes and allows you to assess your remote office’s sustainability yourself. In addition, we want to provide some tips to get you started on making your home workspace sustainable, which are provided below. We hope you enjoy creating a home workplace that is productive and environmentally friendly! 

Tips for creating a more environmentally sustainable home office:

Waste:

1. Try to buy office supplies with minimal packaging when possible. 
2. Purchase paper products that are made with post consumer waste.
3. If using pens or pencils, buy refillable ones.
4. Go paperless by using Docusign and digital invoicing, emailing instead of printing forms, and taking digital notes when possible. 
5. Print double sided when printing is necessary.
6. Try to buy items with minimal packaging at the grocery store.
   1. Paper grocery bags can be reused as liners for recycling or compost bins, as wrapping paper, or as a weed blocker.
   2. Reuse plastic bags as trash bags for smaller bins, to wrap sandwiches and snacks, or as dog walking waste bags. Remember that bagged plastic bags can be recycled!
   3. Reuse plastic food containers as tupperware, for arts and crafts, or as pots for planting. 

Water:

1. Do not use disposable plastic bottles, drink from the tap or use a water filter.
2. Shorten showers - if you want to challenge yourself, strive for 5! (minutes)
3. Adjust your water heater temperature to 115-120 degrees fahrenheit.

Energy:

1. Open shades to make use of natural lighting and improve your mental health. 
2. Use smart power strips at home for all appliances, and shut off strips when not in use.
3. Enable eco mode if possible on appliances and turn computers, printers, and other appliances off at night.
4. Need to replace a lightbulb? Consider buying a UC discounted LED bulb.
5. Open windows for better airflow and to cool down rooms.
6. Utilize California's amazing solar photovoltaic resources by doing your laundry between 8am and 4pm. Learn more about California's Duck Curve.
7. Only charge devices when they are at low power and unplug them when they reach full charge.

Personal Sustainability: 

1. Add plants to your workspace.
2. Use reused materials when creating storage or decorating your workspace.
3. Take walks in between work tasks to get blood and oxygen flowing. 
4. Meal prep to help save time cooking during the week, decrease trips to the grocery store, and minimize food waste.

Carbon Footprint:

1. Shop local when possible. 
   • The Food Bin and The Herb Room is accepting online orders and is owned by Santa Cruz locals. 
   • Shopper's Corner has a great deli counter and a huge produce aisle. 
   • Santa Cruz Farmers Markets are still open and are a great way to get outside while supporting local farmers (who are especially impacted by COVID-19 economic loss).
2. Don’t drive when you don’t need to - try biking or walking instead. 
3. Reduce your meat intake (particularly red meat) as much as you can.  

For the Green Office Team the month of February has been a breather month. We are in the process of certifying 4 offices, and are training our two new members. 

In the beginning of this month we finished certifying the Stevenson College Office and they answered a few questions about their experience. They briefly summarized that they “are happy with the rigid process that the GOC program reps take to vet the client offices; and truly gauge where they are in terms of potential for "sustainable" operations. The post-assessment plan that you create for the client office is realistic and achievable; and promoting efforts to start with low-hanging fruit has been effective in inspiring us to take our efforts further. We love the GOC rep who has guided along the way; very friendly and informed on the consequences of inaction”. The Stevenson Office was certified as a sprout with lots of room to grow! They have also already made changes in their office such as having a compost bin in their kitchen, shutting off power strips and embracing the smart strip, and using natural light whenever possible. A unique step they have taken is adding a SLACK channel to encourage employees to post about their green practices.

We are also going to be hosting another Green Office workshop with the Sustainability Certificate program in the upcoming quarter, dates are TBA. 

Sustainability Certificate Workshop

New Team Members!

We are also happy to announce that the Green Team has grown to 4 members! We have hired Bonnie Feldberg and Elaina “Ellie” Vendegna. 

Ellie Vendegna: I am a second year envs major. I'm excited to start working for the Green Office Team because I want to help make UCSC more environmentally friendly and a fun fact about me is orcas are my favorite animal. 

Bonnie Feldberg: I’m a fourth-year Environmental Studies and Community Studies double major. I love cooking and reading and am looking forward to spending my last couple of quarters here working to make offices at UCSC more environmentally sustainable.

Recent Certifications

We also Certified Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Earth and Planetary Sciences Office last quarter. They both have answered a few questions about their experience: 


Astronomy and Astrophysics Department

The Astronomy and Astrophysics Department was awarded the level of Sprout , to which they added that they have so much room to grow. When asked what steps is the office is taking to make their office a more sustainable environment, they said that “There was a large amount of recyclable paper waste in our trash so we encouraged people to place recycling bins in their office to collect it. After new signage is provided we would like to make maps specific to ISB, CFAO, and Nat Sci so people can easily locate different bins.” 

The office is also exploring other ways to reduce and use compostable waste since there are no bins of that type in the Science Hill area and say that “suggestions are welcome”. 

They said that “The process [of getting certified] was eye opening and exposed our team to the variety of issues our campus must face to create a more sustainable environment.  We were impressed with the work the Sustainability Office has done campus-wide. There were some metrics that did not fully capture the extent of our department's impact (not including air travel in transportation) and our score could have been worse.” We thank the Department of Astronomy for their time, efforts and future endeavors in sustainability!


Earth and Planetary Sciences Department

The Earth and Planetary Sciences Department Office has also been recently certified and received the certification level of Sapling. Amy Kornberg, Earth & Planetary Sciences, Dept. Assistant said that their office is “actively reducing the amount of waste” that the office produces and found the certification process to be informative. We thank the office for their involvement and efforts to become more sustainable and conscious of their environmental impacts. 

Sustainability Certificate Workshop

Green Office Associate Position

We had the pleasure of certifying the UCSC Art Department again this past September. They did the recertification and reached our Tree level meaning that they are at the top tier of sustainability. We also sat down recently for an interview where they decribed their experience as “The Green Office Program is an excellent way to have offices at UCSC think about their impact on the environment and make improvements to their practices and habits that will benefit the environment. The process of getting certified by the wonderful green office staff is actually fun and informative. We recommend all offices on campus to participate.” Their studios have also been certified by our sister program the Green Labs Program (Insert link to green labs site). Overall, the Art department is a true green office that we are happy to have encouraged a sustainable environment. They concluded their interview with, “We are proud to show off our Tree level status and hope to inspire other units across campus to engage in the Green Office certification and work proactively to have less of a negative impact on our fragile environment”.