Katie Maynard

Evanne St. Charles, co-founder of UC Santa Barbara's PACES program, conducts an audit of waste from the College of Creative Studies in 2009.

John Cook doesn't go anywhere without his iPad, and he wants everyone at UC Riverside to do the same someday.

One of his goals as sustainability coordinator at UC Riverside is to cut paper use on campus. He's taken that step himself by using his tablet for taking notes, reading reports and giving presentations.

If he had the funding, Cook would offer tablets to departments on campus in exchange for turning in a printer as a way to encourage paperless offices. It's an idea that's part of a green office program being planned at UC Riverside, which is one of seven UC campuses that have or are implementing similar programs to encourage sustainable workplace practices.

Green office programs are designed to help campus departments identify and employ workplace practices that cut the use of energy and other resources, which also leads to cost savings and helps UC meet its goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

One of the first university green office programs in the country and the first at UC was started at Berkeley in 2009. UC Santa Barbara started its program just after Berkeley's and initiatives are in place or beginning at UC San Francisco, UCLA and UC Santa Cruz, which just certified its first office. UC Davis is piloting a program now and UC Riverside will be testing its in the fall.

UC Berkeley's Green Certification program was conceived to provide a structure for responding to questions commonly asked by departments about the best practices, said Lisa McNeilly, director of the campus Office of Sustainability.

"We were getting similar requests from multiple places, so this was a good tool to answer those requests," McNeilly said.

UC Berkeley's program offers guidance on energy use, waste, transportation, purchasing and other areas to help offices create a "green team" of department leaders and fulfill a checklist of 30 criteria for certification, which last for two years. There are nine Berkeley departments with current certifications and 11 others that were certified but have not renewed. Berkeley also offers a program that certifies events on campus as green.

"Don't think it's too daunting. That's one of the biggest lessons," said Ian Baldridge, a senior technician at UC Berkeley's Environmental Health & Safety Department, which was recertified as green this year. "It's really easy for departments to do."

Many of the items on the checklist, such as recycling, are common in offices, so the adjustments to become green certified can be minor, Baldridge said.

Having a formal program also provides a framework for offices that already are conserving to be more sustainable. It also helps build teamwork because the entire staff must be involved.

"With the checklist, you have something visual, and it gave us a sense of purpose to our mission," said Baldridge, who is chair of his department's sustainability committee.

Kim S. Lane

Using an iPad is easier and greener than shuffling paper, says UC Riverside Sustainability Coordinator John Cook.

Green office programs at other UC campuses are similar. In general, they offer outreach, surveys of how a department and its occupants use resources, and education on how to become more sustainable. There's no data on how beneficial these programs are at UC, but anything that helps cut energy use and reduce waste will make campuses greener and cut carbon emissions. (Research labs have unique sustainability issues and UC campuses also have programs to address them.)

At UC and other universities across the country, many of the programs are student-run or have heavy student involvement.

"Greening our campus is important, but the larger impact we have is involving students in learning about and implementing sustainable practices so they can take that with them to their future careers," said Aurora Winsblade, sustainability director at UC Santa Cruz.

While giving out tablets is an idea that may not come to fruition soon, getting offices to use less paper has many green benefits.

"The iPad is one way to get people away from using paper," Cook said; by doing so, "You start cutting down on a lot of things."

Reducing demand for printing and copying lowers energy use and cuts waste. Factor in having fewer paper orders and delivery truck visits to campus, and it all adds up to lower costs and a greener environment.

This multiplying effect is what makes green office outreach and education initiatives advantageous. The programs encourage behavior such as going paperless, double-sided printing, recycling, composting, turning off idle equipment and using desk lamps instead of overhead lighting.

"A tremendous amount of energy use is directly related to occupant behavior," said Katie Maynard, a sustainability coordinator at UC Santa Barbara leading its PACES green office program.

Plug-in devices and lighting can consume about two-thirds of a typical office's energy, Maynard said. "Any one change may be fairly modest, but it does snowball up."

At UC Santa Barbara, PACES has certified 14 departments in a process that relies heavily on data collection on energy use and waste output. The information also is used to help campus buildings gain a LEED rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

While many of the changes suggested by green office programs can be relatively small, the behavioral and procedural adjustments can be obstacles to people.

Many "think they don't have time for it, and that it takes too much effort," said Gail Lee, sustainability manager at UCSF. "You have to stop and think. I think that's the biggest thing."

Technical barriers such as configuring an office with fewer printers or lights can take some coordination within the department and changes in procedures.

"A lot of it is in the culture and people are not used to having to consider sustainability," said Kate Lin, the student Green Offices coordinator for the UC Davis Office of Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability.

On an individual level, something such as figuring out which bin to place items for composting can be bewildering.

Providing clear and easy to follow guidelines is key to making any changes successful, said Sruti Bharat, co-lead program coordinator for Building Sustainability @Cal, a student service-learning program that works in conjunction with the Green Certification process at UC Berkeley.

"For something like composting, people say you need a master's degree sometimes to understand it," Bharat said. "It's a process of engagement and keeping it simple."

Another way to engage participants is to make it a friendly competition for offices to out-green each other. UCSF's program gives offices point tallies on sustainability criteria while Berkeley and UCLA awards color designations for how green its participants make their offices.

UCLA has 17 offices certified and 30 departments going through its process, including Student Affairs, Graduate Division, Psychology, Environment Health and Safety, and a competition among UCLA Health System support services departments. UCSF just finished its pilot and is recruiting participants.

"Our surveys have shown that staff and students care about sustainability, so (green office programs) gives them the tools to do something about it," said Nurit Katz, sustainability director at UCLA.

Harry Mok is a principal editor in the UC Office of the President's Integrated Communications group. For more news, visit the UC Newsroom or follow us on Twitter.