University of Tennessee at Knoxville
EN-7: Employee Educators Program

Institution administers or oversees an ongoing staff/faculty peer-to-peer sustainability outreach and education program that meets the following criteria:

• Employee sustainability educators are formally designated and receive formal training or participate in an institution-sponsored orientation to prepare them to conduct peer outreach to other employees;
• The institution supports the program with financial resources (e.g. by providing an annual budget) and/or administrative coordination by staff or faculty; and
• The peer educators represent diverse areas of campus; the outreach and education efforts of sustainability staff or a sustainability office do not count in the absence of a broader network of peer educators.

This credit recognizes ongoing programs that engage employees as peers on a regular basis. For example, employee educators may represent or be responsible for engaging workers in certain departments or buildings. Thus, a group of employees may be served (i.e. directly targeted) by a program even if not all of these employees actively participate.

Ongoing green office certification programs and the equivalent may count for this credit if they include formally designated and trained peer employee educators (e.g. “green leaders”).

Employee orientation activities and training and/or professional development opportunities in sustainability for staff are excluded from this credit. These activities are covered in the Employee Orientation and Staff Professional Development credits.

This credit applies to all institutions.

Institutions earn the maximum of 3 points for this credit by having a peer-to-peer educator program that serves (i.e. directly targets) all employees (full- and part-time staff and faculty). Incremental points are awarded based on the percentage of employees served by the peer-to-peer educator program. For example, an institution with a program that serves 50 percent of all employees would earn 1.5 points (half of the points available for this credit).

Points for this credit are calculated automatically in the STARS Reporting Tool as follows:

Timeframe

Report on current program status and offeringsat the time of submission.

Sampling and Data Standards

Include all regular full- and part-time staff and faculty; reporting on a sample or subset of regular employees is not allowed.