Stanford University
EN-7: Employee Educators Program

Through the Cardinal Green Office Program, building managers and occupants in all buildings across campus have the opportunity to be trained to become sustainability champions, with the ultimate goal of subsequently training their peers to improve the sustainability performance of their collective spaces. The program has worked with sustainability champions in over 100 buildings as of 2018 and is available to all staff and faculty on campus. Sustainability champions work with the Office of Sustainability to better understand the most pressing sustainability challenges in their buildings and what they can do to solve them. Then, they engage their colleagues to solve those sustainability challenges through the outreach and training vehicles of their choice. For instance, many sustainability champions work with their colleagues to audit the work stations in their buildings. For work stations that would benefit from a smart power strip, the sustainability champion would work with each of their colleagues to order and install the strip, helping their colleagues understand how to use the strip and engage in other energy-saving behaviors.

Employee educators can be both building managers and everyday occupants, and they can express interest in one of two ways: 1) Participating in the My Cardinal Green online engagement platform and requesting personal training through the platform 2) Contacting the Office of Sustainability directly

Sustainability champions receive personal training from staff in the Office of Sustainability on energy conservation, water conservation, waste diversion, and any other sustainability topics of their interest. This education is often based on a joint audit of the building that the champion and the Office of Sustainability staff perform together, which lays the groundwork for the champion's training and helps identify key issues about which the champion should focus on educating his or her colleagues. Following the audit, the champion receives a form that outlines all the possible areas in which they could focus and how to do so, with specific notes about the areas that seemed most relevant for their space and how they might engage their colleagues in addressing issues in that particular area. Many other resources, including How To Guides, Fact Sheets, Guidelines, sample emails, and flyers are available through the Cardinal Green Office Resource Library to aid sustainability champions in training their colleagues. The Cardinal Green Office Resource Library can be found at https://sustainable.stanford.edu/campus-action/energy/energy-initiatives/cardinal-green-office-program/cardinal-green-office-resource

Staff in the Office of Sustainability personally train each sustainability champion, and many of the materials utilized by the sustainability champions to engage their colleagues in sustainability are developed, printed, and/or subsidized by the Office of Sustainability and the Energy Retrofit Program.

Stanford’s Haas Center for Public Service launched the Cardinal Connectors program in 2015 that pairs staff and faculty who actively participate in and have a deep commitment to community service with other employees and students who are interested in a service experience at Stanford. All Cardinal Connectors are put on an email distribution list that encourages idea sharing, notification of service opportunities, and other community service announcements. They also are invited to join the annual Walk the Talk and Friends of Haas awards luncheon each April and receive swag designed to spark a conversation about public service (i.e. mugs, stickers and office signs). All staff and faculty on campus have the opportunity to become Cardinal Service Connectors; all Connectors are also listed publicly on the Haas Center website at the following link: https://haas.stanford.edu/students/start-your-service-stanford/cardinal-service-connectors

This is a voluntary program. Any Stanford staff or faculty member is eligible to volunteer as a Cardinal Connector by signing up for a Cardinal Connector information session.

The Haas Center for Public Service hosts several information sessions to share information about Cardinal Service with potential Cardinal Connectors and encourage each faculty or staff participant to identify ways that he/she can help to spread the word.

The Haas Center for Public Service devotes staff time to coordination of this program.

CENTRAL ENERGY FACILITY DOCENTS Central Energy Facility docents are Stanford staff and faculty members who are responsible for leading tours of the new Stanford Energy System Innovations (SESI) Central Energy Facility (CEF). As of November 2018, over 10,000 people have toured the facility through these docent-led tours, the majority of them faculty, staff or students. The new CEF came online in April 2015 and received acclaim both internally and externally because of its contributions to Stanford's 68% emissions reduction by 2017 and 80% emissions reduction by 2021. The CEF's innovative nature makes it popular among the Stanford community, so a tour system was set up for staff in several departments to become docents and subsequently lead tours for other Stanford staff, faculty, students, and other visitors. Initially, directors within the Department of Sustainability and Energy Management and the Department of Project Management were asked to nominate employees in their groups to attend the docent training. Subsequently, volunteers were also accepted from any department across campus if they met qualifications. The typical path to become a docent is outlined as follows: 1) Pre-reading of the tour guide packet and other materials 2) 90 minute training session, led by Office of Sustainability staff and CEF facility managers 3) A group "test tour" is required for evaluation purposes, as either a technical tour leader or a general tour leader. 4) Office of Sustainability staff match tour requests with docents and notify the docent of the time, nature of the group and expected attendance. LAGUNITA NATURALISTS Finally, the Lagunita Naturalists program run by Stanford's Land Use and Environmental Planning (LUEP) group trains staff to provide information to other staff, students, and community members on the history, biology, hydrology, and appropriate use of Lagunita, a jurisdictional wetland on Stanford's campus that houses two federally and state protected species.