Target II: Sustainability Framework

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

detail of globe in interior of suzzallo library reading room

ONE UW-WIDE SUSTAINABILITY FRAMEWORK BY 2022

A clear, common definition of sustainability is necessary for effective communication and coordination around learning and action across campus. This Target invokes a campus-wide definition and standardized reporting of existing sustainability courses.

See full target details Plan homepage

Target progress

2020-2025 wrap-up report

Progress:

Convened cross-campus stakeholders to develop and adopt a shared definition of sustainability (2022).
Finalized UW-wide mission and vision statements in 2023, now guiding institutional sustainability communication and planning.
Explored sustainability course tagging with academic units to support future curriculum integration.
UW Medicine convened a committee to address its environmental impact through initiatives in waste diversion, energy and water conservation, sustainable procurement, and greenhouse gas reduction, while also weaving sustainability principles into patient care.

By-the-Numbers:

Developed a university-wide sustainability definition (2022)
Mission and vision adopted (2023)

Status: Achieved. This goal was fully met with the development of a formal definition of sustainability in 2022 and the adoption of a sustainability mission and vision in 2023. These foundational tools have been integrated into strategy and communication efforts and are actively guiding SAP development.

Fiscal year 2024 progress

FY2024 Progress

Target actions for FY2024

Continuing work toward sustainability

In October 2023, the UW Environmental Stewardship Committee (ESC) advanced its efforts by implementing a new governance structure. This structure provides clear pathways and channels to more effectively promote sustainability initiatives at the University. Key elements of the new structure include:

ESC Charter: The ESC implemented its first ever Charter detailing membership obligations, meeting frequency and voting procedures.
Expanded ESC Membership: The ESC reassessed the Committee's representation and made efforts to engage a broader segment of the UW community.
Annual Charge Letter: A letter from the UW President that sets expectations for the ESC each year.
Partnership with the Faculty Council on Campus Planning and Stewardship (FCCPS): As a subcommittee of UW’s Faculty Senate, FCCPS offers crucial guidance and insights for the successful implementation of sustainability initiatives across the tri-campus. The ESC acknowledges the importance of its partnership with FCCPS and will continue to collaborate on projects going forward.

UW Sustainability and the Campus Sustainability Fund transitioned their work on a Sustainability Hub Framework to a focus on the creation of a new student-centered sustainability group. This group, now named Huskies for Equitable Sustainability (HuES), will align with the original Hub concept, which aimed to support a variety of student sustainability projects, organizations and efforts through increased student engagement and collaboration opportunities.

Fiscal year 2023 progress

FY2023 Progress

Target actions for FY23

Develop a sustainability mission and vision statement for UW as an organization
Collaborate with academic departments to refine course list
Develop a Student Sustainability Hub strategic plan

UW Sustainability worked with faculty, staff and student stakeholders to craft vision and mission statements for the University of Washington regarding sustainability. These statements went through several iterations and were approved by the UW Environmental Stewardship Committee.

The final statements:

Vision Statement:
We envision a UW where sustainability is interwoven in everything we do - including scholarship, service, operations, public health, and community. With sustainability deeply embedded in our culture, we will take bold action and lead with urgency for a just, resilient, and healthy planet. 

Mission Statement:
We consistently acknowledge environmental harm and inequity, both past and present, in order to make meaningful progress. We develop leaders and innovative solutions to address our global climate crisis and urgent sustainability challenges. We do this by using teaching, research, service and operations as a foundation to translate learning into action, by creating living labs, and by dedicating resources to follow through on our commitments.  

The work to collaborate with academic departments to refine the course list was put on hold by UW Sustainability due to a lack of staff resources. We will explore renewing this work, especially through collaboration with the Program on the Environment’s Sustainability Minor.

The Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF) has continued work to develop a Student Sustainability Hub, which would be a resource dedicated to supporting students around sustainability.

Fiscal year 2022 progress

FY 2022 Progress

Action: Finalize and publish the university-wide definition of sustainability

This past year the UW finalized an institutional definition of sustainability, which was endorsed by UW President Ana Mari Cauce and adopted by the University. The process of creating the definition involved gathering input from faculty, staff and students from all three campuses. The definition and full information on the process can be found at sustainability.uw.edu/definition.

The definition:
At the University of Washington, we define sustainability as the capacity to create and maintain healthy, equitable and diverse communities and ecosystems. That capacity comprises 1) an understanding and respect for the interdependence of the atmosphere, the waters, the land, and all life on Earth, 2) a full recognition of legacy and on-going impacts of human activity, and 3) a commitment to cultivate collective wisdom and to deliberately act out of that understanding, respect and recognition.

Action: Develop standardized reporting of academic content

UW Sustainability worked with a pair of Environmental Studies Capstone students to examine existing courses offered by all UW departments, and identify courses which were sustainability focused or sustainability inclusive, using the UW sustainability definition as a guide.

UW Sustainability then created an interactive webpage to make the sustainability courses easily browsable by users. Course information used in the interactive webpage was identified by the title and description from the course catalog. The Sustainability Office recognizes that this initial effort most likely did not capture all of the evolving subjects and courses UW has to offer. Our office plans to build off of this initial effort, and next steps will include engaging with departments to develop an on-going process to identify and update sustainability course offerings.

This action calls us to build a centralized reporting platform for identifying and reporting courses that incorporate sustainability. The UW’s central course registration system (MyPlan) currently only has flags to identify graduation requirements. UW Sustainability has started discussions with stakeholders to determine the possibility of incorporating an identifier for sustainability courses without a UW-wide sustainability requirement, and those discussions are ongoing.

Action: Identify minimum learning outcomes

In December 2021, a small, multi-campus group of faculty who teach sustainability-focused courses convened to discuss identifying minimal learning outcomes for sustainability at the UW. Below is a summary of the insights gathered from this conversation. They will inform the our SAP for 2022-2023:

Our learning objectives should focus on what students will be able to do out in the world. Learning should be experiential and participative to be impactful. We need to address the different domains of learning: knowledge, experience/exposure, commitment, critical reflection. We should think about healing as important aspect embedded in this exploration; recognize the importance of acknowledging traumas to help us move to a different relationship with how we manage time and the idea of success.

How to incentivize this work:

Align with UW-wide initiatives to get engagement across the University.
Create a fellowship (to allow people time to do this work and to create a support network). The UBC fellows program is a model. It has shown impact in advancing sustainability as a core value for the university.
Another model is COE's workshop for faculty to incorporate environmental justice into their curriculum
A model for aligning course objectives is Bothell's work on courses that use COIL (Collaborative, Online, International Learning)
There are many parallel efforts across campus - we should be leveraging and connecting those rather than creating new ones. We need to provide transparency; to see that we're in sync and having common ideas.

Action: Determine feasibility of a student sustainability hub

In Winter quarter 2022, UW Sustainability worked with the Environmental Studies Sustainability Studio course. Students in the course researched the need for a Student Sustainability Hub at the university, including a recommendation for a dedicated physical space. UW Sustainability has also started a review of peer institutions to learn how they support student sustainability.

During work planning strategy sessions in Summer 2022, the UW Sustainability focus around the concept shifted from a physical space to a Hub framework that increases student engagement and collaboration opportunities. This summer, the Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF) team conducted an impact assessment, and is currently re-evaluating the current funding model. Ultimately, the CSF team intends to move to a more student-centered sustainability HUB program model, supporting a variety of student sustainability projects, organizations, and efforts.

In the upcoming year, UW Sustainability and the CSF will work to create a Student Sustainability Committee (see the actions for Target 1) which will also help determine the best future path to support student sustainability at the UW.

Previous status reports