University of California, Santa Barbara
PAE-15: Employee Sustainability Educators Program

All UCSB employees are encouraged to become Change Agents. It is not an exclusive group. When initially launching the group, we sought participation from key operational, administrative, and academic departments spanning all divisions of the university. Subsequently, we have continued to challenge ourselves to consider which divisions/departments are not well represented and to actively seek new members from those divisions/departments. We also advertise the opportunity to be a Change Agent at public events throughout the year.

UC Santa Barbara has engaged over 80 staff in our Change Agent Program. As a Change Agent, staff attend regular meetings composed of educational material and collaboration opportunities. Those Change Agents are then responsible for being ambassadors for integrating sustainability into their own work and department or division as a whole.

UC Santa Barbara funds a Campus Sustainability Coordinator in Administrative Services, Jasmine Syed. Her job description includes the management of the Change Agent Program.

The PACES Program coordinates with the Green Building Program to identify the buildings that it would be best to focus on, based on our LEED certification timeline for existing buildings, and then we target our recruitment to departments in those buildings. Though the PACES certification is focused on the building occupants rather than the building itself, we have found it productive to partner with the LEED Program in order to share energy, purchasing, water, and waste auditing data. We also advertise our program broadly and are open to working with any department that shows interest in the program. *Numbers include departments assessed through the 2010-2011 academic year; given the number of departments who have already shown interest in participating in Spring and Winter Quarter of 2012, we expect this number to grow quickly.

The PACES Program collects baseline data on current practices and policies of the department, as well as attitudes of building occupants. One of the steps of data collection includes an electronic survey of all department staff, faculty, and graduate students who have an office. With this data, PACES creates a tailored presentation and action plan for the department that recognizes the department's strengths and weaknesses. Throughout the presentation and in the writing of the plan, PACES focuses on the unique role of each staff member who is leading a sustainability effort within their department. We provide information and resources to empower every staff member to become an educator in their department.

The UCSB Geography Department generously donates office space, office equipment, and administrative support for student interns.