Awards & Recognition

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 University of Washington’s Seattle campus won the 2017 PAC-12 Grand Champion award during RecycleMania, a national collegiate waste diversion tournament. The 786 metric tons of CO2 that UW kept out of the landfill is equivalent to the total amount of energy consumption of 68 households, or removing 154 cars off the road.

The student organization EcoReps supported UW Recycling’s efforts in generating event awareness on campus this year. 

Building Services Department Director Gene Woodard oversees the care of 11.5 million square feet of campus buiding space, as well as handling the waste generated by the occupants of those bulidings. Woodard has empowered employees to put forward ideas to make the work better and more efficient, while keeping on eye on the sustainability of the UW's operations.

Environmental Studies lecturer Kristi Straus not only earned a Husky Green Award this year, but also a Distinguished Teaching Award, for her classes focusing on mindful sustainability.

After two weeks of the nation-wide RecycleMania competition, UW Seattle remains in the lead among all Pac-12 schools, and is 25th overall. RecycleMania is a friendly tournament where national college campuses compete during the course of eight weeks to see which can reduce, reuse and recycle the most on-campus waste.

The Husky Green Awards nomination deadline is almost here, and we still need your help to identify the top sustainability superstars at the University of Washington! Let us know who the top student leaders, faculty mentors, hard-working groups and behind-the-scenes staff are who keep the University of Washington sustainable.

Harborview Medical Center and University of Washington Medical Center have each received the 2016 Top 25 Environmental Excellence Award from Practice Greenhealth. The Top 25 Award recognizes healthcare facilities across the country that exemplify environmental excellence and are setting the highest standards for environmental practices in healthcare.

There are many Green Laboratories at the University of Washington who practice sustainability every day. The Green Lab Certification program was created to recognize these labs, while providing resources for labs who want to improve their practices. This spring, the Green Lab program gave awards to those certified labs which showed outstanding performance even among the select group of certified Green Labs.

For the second year in a row, University of Washington's Seattle campus came in first among its Pac-12 competitors in overall waste reduction during RecycleMania, a national collegiate waste diversion tournament. With an overall reduction rate of 55%, the University ranked number 25 on a list of 207 competing institutions.

Tali Haller has been a student at the University of Washington for less than two years, and she's already won two Husky Green Awards – an accomplishment no one else has achieved.

"It's very motivating, and it also gives some validity to the things that I'm doing," she said about the Husky Green Award wins. "It's really nice to be recognized for work that I'm doing on campus."

Tali has already been able to make a big impact promoting sustainability in the UW Greek system, as well as being involved in many other environmental and sustainability projects on campus and off.