FAS - Green Offices

The staff members of the Harvard Map Collection were recently recognized by the Harvard Office for Sustainability (OFS) for earning Leaf One as part of the Green Office Program.

When you’re working away in your dorm or office trying to implement sustainability initiatives, it can often feel overwhelming.  It shouldn’t be that way, especially when there are so many impassioned students, staff and faculty throughout Harvard dedicated to making Green the new Crimson!

Five junk-mail parties and counting and the FAS Eco-Citizens are still going strong. Just this past June, five staff members and an intern threw an hour long junk-mail party that turned out to be very successful.

Jack Conlin, Group Leader at FAS’s Molecular & Cellular Biology department mailroom, began working to reduce paper waste from mailings years ago, but it was only recently that he realized that he could team up with the Office for Sustainability and with Intra-

A 16% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in base buildings since 2006, 10 green teams and a 28% food waste reduction in the dining halls...

Finding or giving away working surplus equipment, furniture, and books can reduce the environmental cost of production of brand new materials and disposal of the old, and of course it saves money.

Here are 6 ways you can optimize your chances of taking advantage of campus-wide sharing of equipment and supplies at FAS:

The first FAS Eco-Citizens junk mail party was a huge success. Eight staff and students came together to call and email catalogs, journals, and other junk mail senders to remove staff names from the mailing lists.

Do all of the plastic bags in your office end up in the trash?

The FAS Green Program is giving out free silverware to replace plastic and compostable utensils used in FAS buildings. Though the move toward compostable cutlery is a great green step forward, we ultimately are working toward total reuse and zero waste. So sign up for some free cutlery! Thinking about getting Green Office certified?

Long before there was an established University sustainability program, Harvard College Library had made increasing sustainable practices around the library a priority. To continue that commitment, HCL Operations last month convened the HCL Green Team to assist the unit in identifying ways in which the libraries can contribute to the University’s sustainability goals.