Virginia Commonwealth University
EN-7: Employee Educators Program

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

Institution engages its employees in sustainability outreach and education as measured by the percentage of employees served (i.e., directly targeted) by a peer-to-peer educators program.

Part 2. Educator hours per employee served by a peer-to-peer program

Institution engages its employees in sustainability outreach and education as measured by the ratio of the number of hours worked by trained employee educators to the number of employees served by a peer-to-peer program.

To earn points for this credit, an institution must administer or oversee an ongoing, peer-to-peer sustainability outreach and education program for employees. The institution:

• Selects or appoints employees to serve as peer educators and formally designates the employees as educators (paid and/or volunteer);

• Provides formal training to the employee educators in how to conduct peer outreach; AND

• Supports the program with financial resources (e.g., by providing an annual budget) and/or administrative coordination.

To qualify, a program must be explicitly focused on sustainability. The peer educators must also 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 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 and Training credits.

This credit applies to all institutions.

Part 1

An institution earns the maximum of 1.5 points for Part 1 of this credit by having one or more peer-to-peer educator programs that serve all employees. Incremental points are awarded based on the percentage of employees served by a peer-to-peer educators program. For example, an institution with a program that serves 50 percent of all employees would earn 0.75 points (half of the points available for Part 1).

Points for Part 1 are calculated automatically in the STARS Reporting Tool as follows:

Part 2

An institution earns the maximum of 1.5 points available for Part 2 of this credit when trained employee educators work at least one hour annually for each employee served by a peer-to-peer educators program. Incremental points are awarded based on the number of hours worked per employee served. For example, an institution for which trained employee educators work 0.5 hours per employee served earns 0.75 points (half of the points available for Part 2.

Points for Part 2 are calculated automatically in the STARS Reporting Tool as follows:

Timeframe

Report on current program status and offerings at the time of submission.

Sampling and Data Standards

Part 1

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

Part 2

An institution may report the total number of employee educators trained in a given year, a representative snapshot, or an average from throughout the period.

If the actual number of hours worked is not tracked directly, the total number of hours worked annually may be estimated by multiplying the number of trained educators × the average or expected number of hours worked weekly × the number of weeks educators are active.