In Our Nature

As a result of UW Recycling’s two annual waste diversion events — SCRAM (Students Cleanup, Recycle and Moveout) and Husky Neighborhood Cleanup (HNC) — the University of Washington donated a combined total of 28.4 tons of reusable items to local charities and non-profit organizations.

In collaboration with UW Housing & Food Services (HFS), a total of 15 SCRAM donation stations are set up at 13 residence halls during finals week each year. Bedding, clothing, emergency red backpacks, non-perishable food, small appliances, school supplies, toiletries and other items are collected...

UW Civil & Environmental Engineering Assistant Professor Amy Kim is offering a new graduate-level special topics course this fall. The course, "Sustainable and healthy building in global context," will discuss how to align building sustainability strategies to promote occupant health. More specifically, students will identify building components that affect occupants’ comfort, health, well-being, and productivity.

Various healthy building standards will be discussed such as Fitwel, and WELL Building Standard....

UW Recycling is hiring a full-time Program Coordinator. This position will serve as one of three primary customer contacts for the Recycling unit, and as department coordinator for strategy management systems and process improvement initiatives (including Lean process improvement). 

The program coordinator will coordinate and perform work using knowledge and experience specific to sustainability,...

Cassie Maylor has had a passion for the environment pretty much as far back as she can remember.

Living just outside Seattle in Kenmore, Cassie's parents regularly took her and her brother to National Geographic talks. Even as an elementary student, she was fascinated.

"Four times a year for the last 13 or so years, I was hearing from these super-inspiring photographers and seeing all these amazing photos," she said. "I have these little tiny composition books from when I was probably in third or fourth grade taking notes on climate change, like 'Atmospheric CO2', having no...

The University of Washington's new West Campus Utility Plant (WCUP) has received an Envision Gold award from the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI). The Envision system rates sustainable infrastructure projects across the full range of environmental, social, and economic impacts.

The recently completed plant near the corner of University Way and Pacific Street provides cooling and emergency power to energy-intensive research buildings in the southwestern...

Hello! I'm Drue Johnson, a junior majoring in Communications and minoring in English. I'm very excited to have the opportunity to work at UW Sustainability because the Student Program Assistant position allows me to be a social representative of the office. In addition, I get the chance to get experience writing blog posts, social media posts, and to work on my interpersonal communications skills.

Being a part of the sustainability office is especially exciting for me because it is the perfect medium for me to combine my love of communications with my passion for the environment. I...

This month's Green Certification Workshop Wednesday will by July 12 at noon, in Gerberding Hall room G26. These Workshop Wednesdays are monthly open presentation and discussion sessions on the Green Office and Green Lab certifications.

Everyone is welcome to join and learn more about these programs - we'll have a brief presentation, answer questions about the certification application, walk through available resources to help make your workplace more sustainable, and provide support for filling out the application. To find...

The EPA has announced the rules for the 6th annual Campus RainWorks Challenge, a design competition open to U.S. colleges and universities. Through the challenge, the EPA seeks to engage undergraduate and graduate students in designing innovative green infrastructure for stormwater management to showcase the environmental, economic, and social benefits of green infrastructure practices.  

Stormwater pollution is a problem that is growing in scope and magnitude. Communities need planners, designers,...

Congratulations to the UW Sustainability students who graduated this year - Veronica Guenther, CSF Outreach Coordinator; Caroline Beightol, Green Certification Intern; Cole Lausch, EcoReps Coordinator; and Jennifer Watts, Graphic Design Intern. They all added to the ever-changing mosaic of our office, which has relied on the energy and interest of students since we were established in 2008. Students are the life force of sustainability action at UW and we are grateful to have worked with so many talented students over the years who are now changing the world one day at a time.

I...

Who doesn’t like free swag? We’d like to know what you think about getting freebies at UW events, and how useful they are to you.

Here at UW Sustainability, it is important to us that we maintain and improve our efforts to be environmentally friendly when promoting our office. This means that we want to use giveaway items that are not only sustainable, but are also popular and raise awareness about sustainable behavior.

To gauge public interest, we’ve created a brief survey we hope will help our office and others to...