UW Sustainability's blog

The University of Washington is committed to reducing paper consumption at the university and using paper made from recycled content when necessary. Learn more about why that's important with this video, featuring staff and students across UW.

For more information on UW's paper reduction practices, or to become a Paper Reduction Pro, visit the UW Sustainability Paper Reduction page.

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.

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.

The UW Tacoma Center for Leadership & Social Responsibility is offering a 10-week online Certificate in Business Sustainability course this fall.

The CleanTech Innovation Showcase, hosted by the CleanTech Alliance, is Monday, June 26 in Seattle. There are still openings for student volunteers, who will attend the showcase for free. Volunteers must be currently enrolled students or 2017 graduates from CleanTech Alliance member schools (including the University of Washington). All email inquiries must be sent from students' school email addresses.

The University of Washington is one of more than 180 college and universities from across the country - along with more than 1,000 businesses, cities and states - to sign the "We Are Still In" letter declaring continued support for climate action and reducing carbon emissions despite the absence of leadership from the federal government.

Students interested in learning about bees, beekpeeping and pollination have an opportunity to take a summer course covering basic modern beekeeping skills. If you are interested in food production, farming, holistic gardening, botany, entomology, pollination, or are just curious about bees, this course will provide a deep knowledge base. Your participation will be part internship and part science project, so be prepared to don your suit, grab your notebook, and have fun. Who knows - you may become a beekeeper!

As the lead of the UW Tower Green Team, Bethany Staelens is always working to find ways to make her work at UW more sustainable.

Staelens, assistant to the vice provost of UW's Continuum College, has helped start UW Tower-wide initiatives such as reducing paper use and closing curtains to lower heating and cooling costs. She's also featured in a UW video highlighting the benefits of reducing paper.

The first Washington & Oregon Higher Education Sustainability Conference (WOHESC) will take place February 6-8, 2018, at Portland State University. This regional conference merges the Oregon and Washington higher education sustainability conferences to create a platform for empowering and inspiring change making, facilitating action, and for sharing, networking, and collaboration related to sustainability within the region's higher education institutions.