2025 update
With our current five-year Sustainability Action Plan concluding in 2024-2025, we are set to begin the next phase of our sustainability efforts. The University will develop a new plan that will guide us towards our 2050 sustainability objectives. This plan will address the needs of our tri-campus community and involve a range of partners in its creation.
Stay informed about progress, learn about the planning process, and discover ways to get involved on the Sustainability Action Plan update page.
DOUBLE SUSTAINABILITY ORIENTED RESEARCH PROJECTS BY 2025
Sustainability evolves at the intersection between society and the environment. Much of scientific research is aligned along this same interface, so a more refined attention to sustainability illuminates our thinking about how we engage in research. We start toward this Target simply by understanding these parallels through a comprehensive sustainability research inventory. We will also vigorously expand our work beyond the walls of academia, making our campuses and surrounding communities living laboratories that provide rich collaborations and shared positive outcomes.
Status updates
FY2024 Progress
Target actions for FY2024
- Discuss and identify next steps to support and implement Living Lab projects
In 2023, the UW Sustainability team reassessed the goal of doubling sustainability-focused research projects, recognizing the challenges in defining and measuring such research given the vast scope and complexity of work conducted at the University of Washington. Instead of pursuing this broad target, the team has shifted focus to a more tangible approach: expanding Living Lab opportunities on campus.
Living Lab opportunities connect academic researchers with campus operations to provide a practical framework for enhancing sustainability work and research across UW. These collaborative projects bring together students, faculty, and staff to work on research initiatives, pilots or campus-wide programs.
FY2023 Progress
Target actions for FY2023
- Expand living lab opportunities while centering equity, diversity and inclusion
This target has presented challenges, including the difficulty of defining “research” at an institution with many different scales and kinds of research, ranging from large grant-funded projects to student-driven independent efforts. This target lacked clarity on the desired outcome(s) for doubling sustainability research projects. The UW Sustainability team also realized that increasing the number of research projects may not be the most effective and impactful way to reach UW’s sustainability goals.
In the upcoming year as we undergo the process of creating a new Sustainability Action Plan for UW, we will work with faculty, researchers and academic departments to re-examine goals around academic research for sustainability, determining how to best work toward the ultimate goal of expanding sustainability work and ensuring students and researchers have the opportunity and tools to work on sustainability topics across all disciplines.
Under the current target, UW Sustainability has had conversations with stakeholders regarding how to support and expand campus as a Living Lab efforts at the UW and will continue this work. For example, the Energy Transformation project is actively working with Student and Faculty Task Forces to determine how they can connect with the decarbonization work and identifying areas where the project can be used for living lab projects, such as increased access to energy data through new and upgraded metering.
FY 2022 progress
Target actions for 2022
- Develop sustainability research catalog
- Expand campus as a living laboratory
This target has presented challenges, including the difficulty of defining “research” at an institution with many different scales and kinds of research, ranging from large grant-funded projects to student-driven independent efforts. This target lacked clarity on the desired outcome(s) for doubling sustainability research projects. The UW Sustainability team also realized that increasing the number of research projects may not be the most effective and impactful way to reach UW’s sustainability goals.
In the upcoming year as we undergo the process of creating a new Sustainability Action Plan for UW, we will work with faculty, researchers and academic departments to re-examine goals around academic research for sustainability, including alignment with our SAP guiding principles.
Under the current target, UW Sustainability has had conversations with stakeholders regarding how to support and expand campus as a Living Lab efforts at the UW and will continue this work.