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Husky Green Award celebration imageWatch the 2021 Husky Green Award celebration

In October 2021, we were able to recognize the Husky Green Award honorees from 2021 and 2020 in person. A recording of the event livestream can be seen at the link below.

Watch the ceremony

The Husky Green Awards recognize individuals and groups across all University of Washington campuses who lead the way for sustainability at the University of Washington. This is the 12th year the awards have been awarded by the UW Environmental Stewardship Committee as part of the UW's Earth Day celebrations.

The Husky Green Awards are given to students, faculty and staff from the Seattle, Bothell and Tacoma campuses who show initiative, leadership and dedication. See all the 2021 Husky Green Award recipients below.

Green Greeks Executive Committee: Julie Ira, Liz Platin, Grace Rossi, Marissa London, and Chris Gould

student group leadership

The executive committee of the Green Greeks Representative Program worked to ensure the group would not only continue, but thrive despite the obstacles of the pandemic. With many of the students living away from campus and in a fully online environment, the executive committee shifted many of the project teams to communication work, while continuing some in-person activities when possible. 

The executive team ensured the group stayed together while building connections with other organizations, ensuring that projects stayed on track and coordinating among themselves and the other students. The Green Greeks group has been one of the most active sustainability student organizations for several years, and this year’s student leadership adjusted to keep that going in a challenging year.

Casey Crane

staff, Housing & Food Services (UW Dining)

The Projects and Purchasing Specialist for Housing & Food Service’s Dining operations, Casey scrambled to ensure food didn’t go to waste when COVID-19 shut down most of campus last Spring. She created a central commissary process including a virtual dashboard and inventory so that food from closed HFS outlets could be tracked and transferred. Items closer to the end of their shelf life were donated to the Campus Food Pantry and other food banks, while other items could be transferred for campus use. 

The quick creation of the commissary system kept food from spoiling or being wasted, as well as allowing UW Dining to recoup some of the money spent on what would otherwise be unused food. The system also allowed the District Market to create a “Buy 1, Give 1” system, allowing shoppers to purchase selected items at a discounted rate which could be put into Campus Food Pantry donation bins.

Chris Meek

faculty, College of Built Environments

The leader of UW’s Integrated Design Lab, Chris is a champion of sustainability advancement at UW. He has been an active member of UW’s Green Building Standards committee and advocated for strong sustainability standards for new university construction, beyond the required codes. He has been an ex-officio adviser to the Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF) for several years, offering guidance and sustainability expertise to the student committee.

As the director of the Integrated Design Lab, he works to further the IDL’s mission to discover innovative solutions to create more sustainable buildings and healthy urban environments.

Ellen E. Moore

faculty, UW Tacoma School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences

A long time member of UW Tacoma’s Sustainability Committee, Ellen now serves as committee chair. She works to  increase student awareness of sustainability, decrease single-use plastics, incorporate climate change education into humanities, social science, and science courses, and create sustained funding for sustainability initiatives at UW Tacoma. She has been a driving force behind interdisciplinary sustainability research and education projects, and has worked with faculty and staff on all three UW campuses to advance sustainability.

Emily Oven

laboratory staff, School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

As a laboratory staff in Dr. Chelsea Wood’s lab, Emily has been an advocate and driving force for more sustainable lab practices. Her suggested changes to the lab’s practices include purchasing more eco-friendly materials and energy conservation. Perhaps her greatest contribution was to start a composting program within the lab, working with university partners to ensure composting discarded fish and other materials from the lab’s work would be safe and feasible. The lab will now compost hundreds of pounds of fish each year which would have previously gone to the landfill. Emily is also collecting data on the lab’s glove recycling and fish composting programs to present to other labs in the department and assist them to develop similar plans, in what she hopes will be a department-wide practice.

Husky Green Legacy winner: Julia Parrish

faculty, College of the Environment

As a faculty member of the College of the Environment, Julia has been a leader in citizen science efforts and garnered support for conservation work in our region. She has also been a champion for student sustainability engagement at the UW. She was instrumental in the development of the Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF) Advisory Network, a group of of associate deans, Planning & Budgeting and UW Facilities organizations who can help guide student sustainability projects. She was a founding member of the Program on the Environment Sustainability Studio class, giving students an opportunity to apply sustainability learning to real world applications on campus. Many departments ranging from UW Athletics, Recycling, Procurement, Housing & Food Services, just to name a few have all benefited from the success and strength of the POE Sustainability Studio student teams over the years, and not to mention giving POE student alumni the unique experience of consulting for UW administration.

She championed the Sustainable Learning Space near the Fisheries Science Building, working with the CSF, UW Sustainability, faculty and student learners to develop and design an outdoor living laboratory that educates the campus about sustainability.  Not only did Julia lead the project development of an innovative learning environment, but she also spearheaded an effort to include a memorial for Tikvah Weiner, a former UW staff member from the Program on the Environment, to help capture the spirit and dedication that was once part of our campus community.

Husky Green Legacy winner: The UW Farm

group

The UW Farm has provided a space for students to practice and study urban agriculture and sustainability since its start as three small beds by the Botany Greenhouse. Today, the UW Farm covers 1.5 acres on three sites at the Center for Urban Horticulture, Mercer Court and McMahon Hall. 

The Farm largely relies on student volunteers. Its produce is used by Housing & Food Services at campus dining locations, donated to food banks including the UW Food Pantry and distributed to the community in a CSA program. The UW Farm also promotes education about food in the urban environment and works to create a sense of community around its efforts. It provides hands-on opportunities for students to dig into food production, and partners with groups across campus to educate the UW community about our food systems.

Under the leadership of current Farm Manager Perry Acworth, this year the UW Farm was able to continue serving its mission despite restrictions limiting volunteers. This is a continuation of a legacy of innovation at the UW Farm, which regularly uses Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF) grants and other opportunities to add and upgrade facilities to be more sustainable. The construction of a composting toilet to serve volunteers, addition of a greenhouse to extend the growing season, and creation of a Native Garden program setting aside space for indigenous plants with significance in native food traditions are just a few of the many projects the UW Farm has undertaken over the years to improve the student experience and advance sustainability.
Honorable mention:
  • Jeremy Hess, UW Medicine
  • ICA: Institutional Climate Action, student group
  • UW Records Management Team
  • UW Bothell Maintenance Team
  • UW Tower Facilities team

About the Husky Green Awards:

The Husky Green Awards are sponsored by the UW Environmental Stewardship Committee (ESC) and are made possible by the 2008 Senior Class Gift for Environmental Stewardship & Sustainability. The awards are the only recognition program at the University which recognize a commitment to sustainability.

UW Earth Day 2021