Target I: Sustainability Engagement

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.

Updating the plan

DOUBLE STUDENT, STAFF, AND FACULTY SUSTAINABILITY ENGAGEMENT BY 2024

This Target is about increasing the visibility of, and access to sustainability in campus life. Implementing actions include a wide range of education programs, collaborations, and volunteerism that touch the lives of nearly every student, staff and faculty member, as well as community members in the neighborhoods surrounding UW campuses.

See all the target actions

Status updates

FY2024 progress

Target actions for FY 2024

Expand University-wide communication on sustainability
Create a structured student sustainability advisory group

Expand University-wide communication on sustainability

Update the UW Sustainability website to better present sustainability information
Over the past year, the University of Washington's sustainability website has undergone a major transformation, significantly enhancing both its aesthetics and functionality. By emphasizing major initiatives and projects, the reimagined homepage offers a more compelling and interactive user experience. This update has not only improved the website's appearance but also streamlined navigation, making it easier for visitors to find information about UW's sustainability projects and resources.

In the first six months of 2024, the website saw a 20% increase in page views compared to the same period of 2023. This indicates the new design has been largely successful and suggests growing interest in sustainability efforts and information among the UW community.

In addition to visual improvements, UW Sustainability has updated the "campus" section topic pages to make sustainability information more accessible and comprehensive for the UW community. The updates provide a broad overview of the UW’s goals and efforts around topics including energy, water, buildings, food and transportation. The updates also aim to identify learning opportunities and resources related to each topic, enabling students, faculty, and staff to engage more deeply with these issues.

Revamping the Green Office and Lab Certification Programs
The UW’s Green Office and Green Laboratory Certification programs were halted during the COVID response, and have not yet been reactivated. UW Sustainability recognizes a need to develop renewed Green Labs and Green Office programs to help mitigate environmental impacts of these workspaces, while also providing sustainability resources and support to UW staff. In Spring 2024, UW Sustainability hired a new Sustainability and Project Engagement Specialist who will be responsible for overseeing the relaunch of the office and lab programs.

In Spring 2024, a group of undergraduate students in the Environmental Studies 480 class developed a white paper of recommendations for a new UW Green Labs Program. Key program initiatives recommended by this student group include a "Shut the Sash" campaign, which focuses on reducing energy consumption, and a Freezer Challenge, aimed at optimizing freezer temperatures to lower energy use. The student group also recommended a full-time Green Labs Program Manager, which was a key indicator of program success at other R1 universities with an existing Green Labs Program.

Laboratories have been recognized as a priority due to the outsized resources used by lab space compared to other utilizations on campus. While recognizing the importance of lab operations and research, a Green Labs Program will seek to enhance the sustainability of operations by concentrating on high-impact areas such as energy and water consumption. Through targeted initiatives, the program strives to achieve measurable reductions in environmental impact, along with cost savings and/or cost avoidance for the University.

Fostering sustainability collaboration
The University of Washington is dedicated to fostering a culture of sustainability across its tri-campus. This has been demonstrated through events like Earth Lab’s Climate Justice Conversations and Connections gathering and UW Medicine’s Symposium on Climate Change and Clinical Practice that provided platforms for dialogue and education on issues that are directly affecting the UW community.

The Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF) cemented their role in leading comprehensive and justice-centered sustainability programming on the UW Seattle campus. Guided by student oversight, from July 2023 to- June 2024 the CSF granted $340,715 to 28 projects. These projects range in topic and size, fostering initiatives such as the SER-UW Native Plant Nursery, UW Bird Friendly Campus, the Black Student Commission Concert, the Seattle Multilingual Youth of Color and Educator Collective and many others. Learn more about CSF-approved projects on their website.

CSF has showcased student voices through campus events and developed resources centered on intersectionality and equity. In February 2024, CSF organized its inaugural teach-in and mixer focused on Climate Justice and Collective Action. The event, which garnered over 100 attendees, featured student speakers and community organizations discussing the application of the Just Transition framework to UW's Energy Transformation plan and the local community. The event showcased CSF’s goal to bridge conversation and collaboration across disciplines and organizations to collectively build the just and sustainable future UW envisions.

UW Bothell efforts: On UW Bothell’s campus, their Sustainability Office engaged with 30 community partnerships over the past year, and collaborated on 20 events that brought in over 1,700 attendees. This marked a 100% increase over 2022-2023 numbers.

Create a structured Student Sustainability Advisory Group

Over the past year, UW Sustainability and the Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF) have been working to create a student-focused group that will provide a platform for students to actively engage in the University's sustainability efforts. The goal is to foster collaboration and coordination among various student sustainability groups and create a more direct connection between students and the University's sustainability initiatives. The purpose and scope of the student group has evolved over the past year, going beyond just providing advisory opportunities for students.
The group, now named Huskies for Equitable Sustainability (HuES), aims to create a supportive and inclusive community for students passionate about sustainability. HuES will provide both on and off-campus learning opportunities for its members. Additionally, students involved in HuES will have the chance to contribute their perspectives, ideas, and expertise to the development of UW's new Sustainability Action Plan.
By creating HuES, UW Sustainability and CSF are taking important steps to empower students to become active participants in shaping the University's sustainability agenda. The group will serve as a hub for student engagement in tri-campus sustainability efforts, facilitating collaboration and knowledge sharing among the many environmentally-focused student organizations on campus.

Fiscal year 2023 progress

FY2023 progress

Target actions for FY23

Expand University-wide communication on sustainability
Enhance community engagement opportunities

Expand University-wide communication on sustainability

UW Sustainability revised its website to provide better access to information and resources on sustainability across the UW. This past year the UW Sustainability team underwent a content audit, identifying the existing topics available on the website and updated the website navigation to make it easier for users to find relevant information. The main URL was also updated from green.uw.edu to sustainability.uw.edu to better reflect our mission and the current definition of sustainability.

UW Sustainability also worked with the UW Facilities communications team on a homepage redesign for sustainability.uw.edu, determining how to present the most important information on the homepage to facilitate the user experience. The new homepage design and content work was completed, and the actual process of building and launching the design will occur in late summer 2023.

Enhance Community Engagement Opportunities

UW Sustainability, UW Facilities Energy, Utilities & Operations, and the Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF) partnered to organize a student task force related to the UW’s decarbonization effort. This taskforce provided an opportunity to share information and updates with students, as well as giving students an avenue to voice suggestions, concerns and other feedback regarding the project. The student group met quarterly with Director of Energy, Utilities & Operations David Woodson, and the Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF) facilitated meetings of the group every other week throughout the school year.

In addition, UW Sustainability and the CSF developed a structure and framework for a student sustainability advisory committee, which will help foster collaboration and coordination among student groups as well as creating a more direct connection to students for sustainability engagement. The sustainability committee is also intended to serve in an advisory role, supporting UW sustainability efforts and cross-disciplinary efforts across the organization.

Fiscal year 2022 progress

FY 2022 progress

Target actions for FY 2022

Whole U and UW Sustainability collaborate to expand university-wide equitable engagement
Expand professional development opportunities for faculty and staff
Inventory and expand community engagement

Much of the work under this target has focused on organizing and promoting sustainability events, providing opportunities for the UW community to connect on a variety of sustainability topics. Events enable new learning and engagement around topics in-depth or at an introductory level, and promote cross-disciplinary collaborations between different units.
The engagement working group organized several events throughout the year to facilitate this engagement, including a Tri-Campus Food Systems event in the Fall and a Food Systems Conversation Series in the Spring. UW Sustainability also welcomed a return to in-person events with a Sustainability Fair in the Fall - inviting academic departments, operational groups and student organizations to table and provide information on sustainability efforts - and Earth Day events in the Spring. There are also hundreds of events hosted by different groups across the UW every year, including academic seminars and lectures, volunteer work parties and student-led events. Annual offerings include the School of Environmental & Forest Sciences’ Sustaining Our World Lecture, the Student Food Cooperative’s Humble Feasts, the Foster School’s Environmental Innovation Practicum, the American Indian Studies Department’s Living Breath of wǝɫǝbʔaltx: Indigenous Foods and Ecological Knowledge symposium, and many more from a wide variety of disciplines.

While events play an important role in community engagement, events are a small part of the larger sustainability picture, and generally only reach a small percentage of the UW community. This target will be re-evaluated to address quality of engagement rather than only quantity, as high-quality engagement with fewer people can be equally if not more impactful. We also want to better identify the desired outcomes from an engagement target, and how equity can be better centered in our collective sustainability engagement work. Finally, if the updated Plan includes a measurable target for engagement, we will need to ensure the target can be measured over a baseline.

Previous status reports

Target metrics

Metrics for this target are still being developed. As part of the fiscal year 2021 Action Plan, UW Sustainability will lead an effort to define “sustainability engagement” in measurable terms, and assess a 2020 baseline. The defined measurement unit shall correlate to an individual receiving an encouragement toward considering environmental impact, human health, diversity, equity or inclusion in the context of their participation in the UW community.