UW Sustainability office

UW Sustainability staff tabling at an event

UW Sustainability is based on the University of Washington's Seattle campus and advances the university’s commitment to sustainability. Acknowledging UW’s legacy for the future, UW Sustainability leads the development and execution of innovative and inclusive solutions that are socially responsible, economically viable, and affect positive environmental impact. We work with students, faculty and staff across the University of Washington to coordinate and implement sustainability programs and efforts, and provide sustainability resources for the UW community.

Who we are

Our office includes permanent, full-time and part-time staff along with students, interns and volunteers.

Meet our staff

What we do

Our work falls into the following categories:

Reporting and communicating

UW Sustainability gathers sustainability-related information and data from partners across the Seattle campus to track our progress and meet reporting requests such as the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) and maintain our sustainability dashboard. We also track and publicize information about our work to follow the Sustainability Action Plan.

Supporting best practices

UW Sustainability monitors information about best practices in sustainable operations and helps the University find ways to follow those practices. Examples of this can be found in our Green Building Standards, our Green Office Certification and our Green Lab Certification.

Creating engagement opportunities

UW Sustainability identifies, creates and identifies opportunities for staff, students and faculty to engage with sustainability efforts. These are displayed on our Get Involved pages.

Promoting equity, diversity & inclusion

As our definition of Sustainability articulates, equitable, diverse and inclusive communities are both a prerequisite and an outcome of sustainability. This makes the work of creating equity, diversity and inclusion fundamental to the work of our office. See our list of EDI values for more information.