Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 76.93
Liaison Ezra Small
Submission Date March 6, 2020

STARS v2.2

University of Massachusetts Amherst
EN-7: Employee Educators Program

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.96 / 3.00 Nathanael Schildbach
Marketing Manager
University Relations
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Part 1. Percentage of employees served by a peer-to-peer, sustainability educators program

Total number of employees:
8,827

Total number of employees served by a peer-to-peer sustainability outreach and education program:
8,827

Percentage of employees served by a peer-to-peer sustainability outreach and education program:
100

1st program 

Name of the employee educators program (1st program):
Green Office Program

A brief description of the employee educators program (1st program):
The Green Office Program encourages and facilitates energy and waste reduction practices in offices across campus.

UMass Amherst currently has over 85 offices (and counting) that participate in the Green Office Program. Find the full list of offices working to be more sustainable here.

How Does It Work?
The offices that choose to participate in the program work to complete requirements based on a five-level scale: bronze, silver, gold, green and evergreen. Each level is based off of seven topics: energy, waste and recycling, kitchens, bathrooms, travel, purchasing and involvement, which outline more sustainable office behaviors and operations. Completion of the program occurs once an office fulfills the criteria for the “evergreen” level. Offices will need to renew their certifications to maintain their "evergreen" standing every semester.

Our Sustainability Fellows (students) work individually with an Eco-Leader (a role assigned to a staff member in the office) to devise a plan customized to meet the office’s needs. The system allows for a friendly competition between offices to see who can reach the evergreen certification. Recognition is rewarded for every level completed with a congratulatory certificate.

Scoring for certification for v2.1 (Launched January, 2018) is as follows:

Bronze: 11+
Silver: 16+
Gold: 21+
Green: 26+
Evergreen: Offices are eligible for Evergreen status if they attain the following:
They maintain green certification for at least two semesters.
Earn a minimum of 5 innovation credits.
(Prior to Fall 2018) Recruit another office to the program.
(Post Fall 2018) Share a weekly sustainability tip, sustainability news article, or something that your office is doing to promote sustainability with the members of your office.

A brief description of the employee educators program’s target audience (1st program):
All offices and in turn all faculty and staff are the target audience of the Green Office Program.

Number of trained employee educators (1st program):
95

Number of weeks the employee educators program is active annually (1st program):
52

Average or expected number of hours worked weekly per trained employee educator (1st program):
1.50

Total number of hours worked annually by trained employee educators (1st program):
7,410

Website URL where information about the employee educators program is available (1st program) :

If reporting employees served by additional peer-to-peer programs, provide: 

2nd Program

Name of the employee educators program (2nd program):
Campus Climate Ambassadors

A brief description of the employee educators program (2nd program):
In spring 2018, the Office of Equity and Inclusion and Workplace Learning and Development launched the campus climate ambassadors program. Climate ambassadors receive several hours of training in order to facilitate one-hour long focus group conversations —called climate conversations— with a small group of campus participants with the potential for follow-up lunch conversations with the same group. These ambassadors included undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty and staff, and seek to incorporate the many voices that make up the UMass fabric in a conversation around campus climate.

A brief description of the employee educators program’s target audience (2nd program):
All students, faculty and staff are invited to be a part of the climate conversations on campus.

Number of trained employee educators (2nd program):
40

Number of weeks the employee educators program is active annually (2nd program):
5

Average or expected number of hours worked weekly per trained employee educator (2nd program):
6

Total number of hours worked annually by trained employee educators (2nd program):
1,200

Website URL where information about the employee educators program is available (2nd program):

If reporting employees served by more than two programs, provide:

Additional Programs 

A brief description of all other employee peer-to-peer sustainability outreach and education programs:
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Number of trained employee educators (all other programs):
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Number of weeks, on average, the employee educators programs are active annually (all other programs):
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Average or expected number of hours worked weekly per trained employee educator (all other programs):
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Total number of hours worked annually by trained employee educators (all other programs):
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Part 2. Educator hours per employee served by a peer-to-peer program

Grand total number of hours worked annually by trained employee educators (all programs):
8,610

Hours worked annually by trained employee sustainability educators per employee served by a peer-to-peer program:
0.98

Optional Fields

Website URL where information about the employee sustainability educators programs is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.