Tufts University
EN-9: Staff Professional Development and Training

A number of sustainability trainings are available to employees. The Tufts Eco-Ambassador program consists of a series of workshops on sustainability topics that are open and available to all employees on all Tufts campuses. The trainings cover topics such as recycling, water, energy, transportation, events, purchasing, and behavior change. Employees can include Eco-Ambassador training in their performance plan or can develop sustainability key performance indicators after completing the training. The Office of Sustainability also presents at meetings and trainings across the university to educate and train staff on sustainability topics and recycling.

Additional staff professional development trainings through Human Resources such as the "Foundations of Administrative Support" (FAST) training have sustainability components as well. This is a very popular class for new staff to take. The training goes over event planning and includes information on how to make your event sustainable. The training also covers how to create your performance plan, and gives sustainability goals as an example. Other HR trainings such as "Project Management", "Communication Skills", and "Effective Meeting Management" use sustainability examples in their modules as well.

In addition to the more formal workshops and trainings, the Office of Sustainability also provides additional educational and development opportunities for Eco-Ambassadors, such as field trips. A number of sustainability-related lunch and learns and speaker series are held regularly on campus for staff, as well as students and faculty members.

On an informal basis, the office of sustainability offers and has paid for employees to attend sustainability conferences, webinars and trainings. Of course, FT benefits-eligible employees can use the university-wide tuition remission or reimbursement benefits for sustainability-related academic courses, including courses towards the master's in sustainability degree, which some do. Employees can also apply to the Green Fund for funding to take trainings.

In 2018, of the 12 offices that achieved Green Office Certification in 2018, there were some offices that answered "Yes" to the "Our employees' performance plans include at least 1 sustainability-related goal" credit.
10-25% of employees performance plans: 3 offices answered this
25-50% of employees performance plans: 1 office answered this

We calculated that 3% of our staff get annual training by adding together the number of employees that got trained as Eco-Ambassadors or took the FAST or Effective Meeting Management courses in 2018.