SGG Workplace Certification Program
The Scotty Goes Green (SGG) Workplace Certification program is a voluntary, self-guided review of office practices and employee behaviors as well as an opportunity to learn more about sustainability. We aim to establish a network of sustainability-literate employees to serve as leaders and to educate their peers on campus resources and practices while increasing campus sustainability practices.
What defines a workplace? For the purpose of this program, a workplace is a physical area that shares common spaces and resources. This includes kitchens, meeting rooms, storage rooms, and other shared areas. The workplace may include just one or all of the offices within a unit or division. You may have an office of 6 people or 60 people — all sizes are welcome to participate! When thinking about the number of employees in a workplace, please include all part-time and full-time staff, students (including interns), and faculty that share the workplace.
The certification process follows five steps:
1. Designate
Each workplace needs a champion to help guide colleagues through the certification process and beyond. This champion will serve as the Scotty Goes Green (SGG) Rep – workplaces may designate more than one Rep! The SGG Rep(s) will lead the workplace by serving as a content expert, encouraging new actions or that current actions are maintained, and providing ongoing support to their colleagues.
SGG Rep Responsibilities:
- Lead the workplace by serving as a content expert and providing ongoing support to workplace staff
- Encourage colleagues to try new actions or help maintain existing ones
- Attend Green Practices Committee meetings and/or SGG events, when available
- Serve as the liaison between CMU Green Practices and your workplace
- Complete the on-demand CMU Green Practices FocusU course (coming soon!)
2. Educate
The evaluation for the SGG program is a checklist, but before you begin the evaluation it is best to learn about the actions and how best to accomplish these actions.
Therefore, in addition to the checklist, we have compiled a SGG Workplace Certification Guide that provides resources, research, suggestions, and ideas for each item on the checklist. Review this to understand why we have chosen each action and receive tips on accomplishing these actions on CMU’s campus.
Coming soon! A training course is in development that provides a basic introduction to sustainability, campus resources and services, and a brief overview of the SGG program. This course will be available on-demand in the FocusU system and should take less than 30 minutes to review.
This introductory course is not just limited to SGG Reps! We would encourage anyone in the office to review the course (there will be points on the checklists for having colleagues do so!).
3. Evaluate
As a workplace, review the SGG Workplace Certification checklist. SGG Reps may have to ask their colleagues about their behaviors or different policies in order to thoroughly evaluate workplace actions.
Don’t let the list overwhelm you! This checklist can be looked at as inspiration to help generate ideas on how the office can increase its sustainable processes and behaviors.
Once you have responses to the actions, submit responses via the online submission form: https://tinyurl.com/SGGWorkplace-checklist
4. Celebrate
After submitting your checklist, SGG program staff will score your actions and provide a certification level. Now is the time to celebrate all your hard work!
Besides pride in a job well done and the benefits to the planet, your workplace will be recognized through the following:
- An award to place in your front office (or other common area)
- A door/window cling recognizing your workplace as SGG certified
- Acknowledgement of your certification level on the SGG Workplace certification website
- A digital logo to place on your own website that recognizes your certification level
- A digital badge for your email signature file
- Recognition in an article in the Piper
- Invitation to the annual SGG appreciation event
5. Participate
The work doesn't end yet! We encourage workplace employees to attend the bi-monthly Green Practice Committee (GPC) meetings. Employees are also invited to join the GPC email list. This list receives agendas and notes for GPC meetings, as well as occasional updates about campus green practice opportunities and events.
In addition, the SGG program will host SGG Rep events throughout the academic year. These will be opportunities to learn more about campus green practices, a chance to hear from other SGG certified offices, or to just get together and relax.
SGG Reps are encouraged to continue sharing information with their colleagues. We hope that this program empowers Reps to educate their colleagues and continue improvements in their office spaces and across camps!
To retain and improve your SGG Workplace Certification level, please plan on re-submitting every three years. In advance of your annual certification anniversary, we will send SGG Reps a reminder email.
