Arizona State University
EN-7: Employee Educators Program

The Green Devil Network is composed of volunteer ASU employees that meet monthly to learn about the University's sustainability initiatives and ways to implement practices within their own departments to assist in meetings these goals. Programming and meetings are facilitated by Sustainability Practices and Zero Waste staff. In order to be certified as a Green Devil Network member, participants must gain buy-in from their colleagues to implement sustainable practices with their own work units, specific tasks are outlined in a “toolkit” which members should lead their colleagues through. Member’s are also expected to communicate and engage their colleagues around the topics and information that they learn at the monthly GDN meetings. Practices include: energy saving policies, waste reduction policies, and creating a workplace culture of sustainability. Members are also encouraged to recruit and support new members from departments that do not already have a green devil representative. Members also share best-practices and challenges they've experienced within their individual departments at quarterly meetings. Some examples of how peers educated peers with their training: 1. Biodesign, Psychology, and Student Services departments hosted a month long competition between departments to see who could collect and recycle the most soft plastics. 2. Study Abroad Office developed a sustainability feature scavenger hunt as a way to train all employees about campus initiatives. 3. GDN members spread the word and encouraged their colleagues to participate in RecylceMania and Day Without Cars and gave them resources for successfully participating 4. The Employee Assistance Office and Herberger Advising have also moved to completely paperless record keeping, led by their Green Devil reps.

The goal of recruitment for the Green Devil Network is to have at least one representative from each academic and/or administrative department across all campuses. Any staff/faculty member may join the network if they demonstrate a continued commitment to making their workplace more sustainable and engaging their colleagues in the University's broader sustainability initiatives. All Green Devil Network members are required to complete ASU's online Sustainability Literacy Training.

New members of the Green Devil Network receive training in 3 main topic areas of sustainability: culture of sustainability, zero waste, and energy conservation. Each year, new topics are covered to stay up to date with the university’s changing sustainability projects. Examples include sustainable food systems, urban forestry, and tours of the university’s sustainability features. They are then tasked with implementing a variety of activities related to these topic areas into their own offices by working with their colleagues and management. If all tasks are completed, the member becomes a certified Green Devil. During meetings, members have a chance to share challenges and brainstorm ways to better engage their colleagues and implement practices. They are also expected to serve as liaisons to their respective departments to keep their colleagues up to date with the latest sustainability information and projects. Second year Green Devil Network members are required to develop and implement a project related to sustainability practices at ASU. University Sustainability Practices supports and coaches members in design and implementation. Second year Green Devil Network members are required to develop and implement a project related to sustainability practices at ASU. University Sustainability Practices supports and coaches members in design and implementation.

The Green Devil Network is funded and facilitated by University Sustainability Practices staff.

The Sustainability Committee is a subcommittee of the University's Staff Council which serves all staff across all campuses. The committee's purpose is to work on sustainability initiatives that have a direct impact on University staff. Signature programs include: ensure employee recognition events include sustainable practices, updating sustainability metrics upon which employees are evaluated during annual performance reviews, co-hosting engagement activities to educate broader staff community about sustainability.

Committee members may be elected staff council representatives or they can be staff that are interested in participating in solely the sustainability committee. The committee chair is always an elected staff council representative. The expectation of committee members is that they will disseminate all pertinent committee decisions back to the broader staff council and also to the departments that they represent and educate their colleagues on sustainability initiatives that impact staff.

Committee members attend bi-monthly meetings to discuss projects and progress towards sustainability goals that are set in the beginning of each fiscal year. The committee reports this progress to the broader staff council and coordinates with the council to make decisions that effect the entire university staff population. Various staff members from sustainability focused departments on campus (University Sustainability Practices, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, and Zero Waste) serve on the sustainability committee as a resource and to ensure the most up-to date, pertinent sustainability initiatives are being pursued by the committee.

The Sustainability Committee is a formal committee of the University Staff Council. The committee receives administrative support from staff council and from University Sustainability Practices through paid staff.