University of Michigan
PAE-13: Staff Professional Development in Sustainability

There are many opportunities for University of Michigan staff to learn about sustainability practices. An example of an opportunity available is My Planet Blue. This was created for University of Michigan faculty, staff and students to come together and help save energy and improve the environment in small but meaningful ways. Together, these small changes can make profound impacts on budgets, on waste, and ultimately, on our planet. Each month, they send an email to alert faculty and staff who sign up of a few additional changes they can adopt to make their work life more sustainable. In the meantime, there is a list of tasks available online that encourages participants to complete as many tasks as possible. They can then track their progress and learn a great deal along the way. The Planet Blue web site also lists numerous events and trainings that are available to all campus faculty, staff, and students that range from speakers to conferences to opportunities to participate in or volunteer for various sustainability campaigns. We also have a sustainable computing team, who offers their services to units and IT departments on campus to help raise awareness about the impact of computing on the environment. They provide tools to help U-M faculty, staff, students, and IT professionals be better environmental stewards of our computing resources, with the goal of ultimately changing the culture of the University to always consider the environment when making decisions about computing.

See also: http://sustainability.umich.edu/events http://sustainability.umich.edu/content/sustainable-computing