Western Washington University
EN-7: Employee Educators Program

Sustainable Office Certification (SOC) is for all staff in administrative and academic office working groups. The program recruits a volunteer coordinator in each office, and provides training, coaching and assistance for the Sustainability Engagement Institute Coordinator and other office staff. Training includes use of the Sustainable office score sheet and tools, to assess and measure baseline workplace practices; coaching in improvement of practices, maintaining a commitment to best practices, gaining participation of all office staff, and attaining certification goals for their daily practices that reduce energy and materials consumption, impacts and waste. SOC provides offices with a checklist for Sustainable Workplace assessment and offers assistance with the certification process. The SOC also makes a concerted effort to connect offices with other entities doing sustainability work on campus such as the Recycling Center and sustainability programs in Facilities Management. This is done through offering presentations or energy audits conducted by these entities to the offices seeking certification.

Upon submitting the assessment, an office receives a framed Certificate of Achievement with its appropriate rating: bronze, silver, gold, or platinum. To additionally increase participation and add competitiveness, the SOC will plan to host an annual Recognition event.

The SOC target audience is any office or department on campus. The size or official designation is not relevant, it is simply any entity that has a consistent physical location on campus. The participation numbers are low for this report as this program was just launched, however, we anticipate robust participation n the next year.