UB Faculty, Staff to Be Graded On "Green" Office Practices

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Students at the University at Buffalo aren't the only ones on campus receiving report cards; offices and departments throughout the university are being issued report cards rating their level of environmental responsibility.

Letter grades will be assigned to individual units based on specific criteria.

Grading will follow comprehensive evaluations conducted by representatives of UB's Building Conservation Contacts Network, a university-wide group that acts to encourage and monitor compliance with UB's environmental policies. Representatives will contact supervisors, office managers and department chairs to discuss and arrange an evaluation.

"It's meant to be a positive and 'fun' exercise," said Walter Simpson, UB's energy officer and coordinator of the BCC program. "UB has huge environmental impacts, but individuals can make a difference.

"In recent years, we made a concerted effort to get offices on campus to begin to change the way they operate. We issued recycling bins to each of our 4,000 employees, we distributed booklets on green computing, we developed policies to minimize environmental impacts," he added. "Now we want members of the university community to see how far they've come and how much there is left to do."

According to Simpson, the report card is intended to provide offices with a means to sytematically evaluate how they comply with the university's environmental policies. Campus environmentalists also hope it will encourage employees to take additional steps toward environmental stewardship in the office.

Office practices are being evaluated in the areas of waste reduction, recycling and use of recycled paper, energy conservation, green computing, purchasing, hazardous materials (where applicable) and transportation.

The grades are based on specific criteria, such as the use of double-sided copying, the use of e-mail instead of paper, minimization of telephone-book purchases, avoidance of space heaters, use of scrap paper for drafts, environmentally responsible purchasing policies and education programs that encourage minimization and proper disposal of hazardous materials.

The BCC network is part of UB's Environmental Task Force and University Facilities.