New York University
PAE-15: Employee Sustainability Educators Program

All NYU employees (faculty and staff) are invited to join the Advocate Program, via emails direct, posters, announcements from supervisors/academic leadership, and other media. Faculty, administrative clerical and professional staff volunteers fill out an Advocate sign up form and then are evaluated for eligibility (and sometimes, supervisor approval is sought) before being admitted into the program. The Advocate Program is promoted through bulk emails to NYU staff, posters, a website, and outreach through Human Resources, existing Advocates, an School administrators. Potential advocates complete an application form which requests the following: Why do you want to become a Sustainability Advocate? What are some opportunities for ecological improvement in your area? What is your past experience with environmental issues and action? Most staff that apply are admitted to the program.

The Sustainability Advocate Program engages the broader NYU community in the effort to create a more sustainable campus. The program harnesses the effort, energy, and enthusiasm of employees to "green" their own departments and work spaces, while educating others and increasing awareness throughout the university. Every month, Sustainability Advocates receive information about a particular environmental concern (water, transportation, waste, etc.), as well as a targeted project for implementation in their work area. Additionally, every month the Advocates will send feedback to the Program, enabling sustainability staff to gather key information about recycling rates, energy consumption, or employee attitudes toward sustainability. New Advocates attend a two hour training session where they discuss sustainability in general, sustainability at NYU, and particular energy saving, waste reduction and sustainable purchasing practices. The training is ended with a walkthrough of an office area and new advocates are asked to identify ways they can improve office sustainability.

Sustainability Advocates spend 2-3 hours of paid work time per month encouraging colleagues to make environmentally preferable choices and leading departmental efforts to conserve energy, purchase green office products, and improve recycling. The Office of Sustainability commits financial resources for program print and web materials, events, resource guides, support for volunteers' greening efforts, communication, and more. A part-time Program Assistant spends 10-30 hours per week on the Sustainability Advocate Program, depending on the season.

Total employees figure includes all full- and part-time faculty and staff, excluding the School of Medicine, consistent with other categories (Climate, Water, etc.) and with the stated institutional boundaries for evaluation. There is no way to accurately evaluate how many employees have had their work-lives directly influenced or affected by the Sustainability Advocate Program. It's far too narrow to assume that only trained employee Advocates themselves (190) should count toward this credit, and all employees (11,626) have been reached out to directly through multiple forms of media with information about the program, its accomplishments, and why and how to join. Somewhere in between is the number of employees affected in a substantive way.