Emory University
EN-4: Outreach Materials and Publications

OSI creates and disseminates a weekly electronic newsletter, which updates subscribers about campus and community sustainability events and resources, as well as shares components of the Emory Sustainability Vision and Strategic Plan 2015-2025 and sustainability tips. Currently, the listserv has 2,138 subscribers.

Additionally, a weekly Farmers Market newsletter goes out to the campus subscribers. The newsletters tells vendors stories, announces what products vendors will bring each week, shares market and food related news and events, and shares information on Emory’s seven sustainable food messages:
Three large issue areas:
o Emphasize seasonality – more signage is going up in dining facilities
o Connect to social justice, farm worker, farm community aspects of local and sustainable food
o Highlight energy embedded in food and climate implications
Three specific topical areas:
o Educate about sustainable seafood choices
o Strengthen understanding of Fair Trade (and role of certifications)
o Improve understanding of grassfed meats and dairy
And one further important issue: Reduce waste

The Office of Sustainability Initiatives' Green Offices at Emory and Green Labs at Emory programs have dedicated newsletters that are sent periodically to offices and labs that are certified under these programs.

The Office of Sustainability Initiatives also sends a dedicated newsletter to over 150 students, faculty and staff who are Zero Waste Ambassadors. The newsletter highlights engagement opportunities for the groups, provides updates on campus waste management and solicits feedback on the waste policy from across the Emory Enterprise.

The sustainability website also features a "News & Press" section, which serves as an online compilation of News and Articles related to sustainability efforts led at Emory University, Oxford College, and throughout Emory Healthcare. The website also features an "Events" calendar where campus and community events are compiled for easy promotion.

The Office of Sustainability Initiatives is active on Twitter (@EmoryGreen), Facebook (@EmorySustainability) and Instagram (@emorysustainability).

The Office of Sustainability Initiatives publishes an online newsletter twice a year that is distributed to the Emory neighborhood through the Clifton Community Partnership. The newsletter shares important sustainability stories from Emory University and Healthcare. The listserv currently has 2,099 subscribers.

All LEED certified buildings at Emory feature a LEED certification plaque. There is also additional signage around campus that highlights particular green features of some of the LEED buildings. 24 of Emory's buildings are equipped with a building dashboard that measures and displays statistics such as total electricity, heating energy, cooling energy, water consumption and per-floor electricity use. Here is an example from a first-year residence hall: https://buildingos.com/s/emory/storyboard96139913/. In many of our LEED certified buildings, plaques highlight various green features of the building, including natural lighting and recycled material used in construction.

The Office of Sustainability Initiatives has also worked with prominent student, faculty and staff campus leadership to create lamppost banners on which the leaders share a sustainable action they adopt. These are displayed and rotated on lampposts across the campus.

As of January 2018, the Emory campus also has standardized, color-coded signage with clear images and text on all campus recycling, composting and landfill bins that help campus residents and visitors to sort their waste properly.

There is also signage on campus adjacent to stormwater management features like a bioswale or green roof, that explain how the green infrastructure works and how it benefits Emory and our downstream communities.

In Emory Dining locations, electronic and handwritten signage indicates from which local farmer or small business menu items have been procured. There is also signage indicating Emory's commitment to purchasing fair trade coffee and tea, as well as to purchasing local, seasonal food.

In 2018, the Office of Sustainability Initiatives replaced its previous sustainability map with an updated version that can be found here: https://sustainability.emory.edu/impact/interactive-map/. Using the maps layers, anyone can view the locations of renewable energy installations, meditation and quiet spaces, LEED and Earthcraft certified buildings, Gardens and the Emory Farmers Market, greenspaces and creeks, green infrastructure, water reuse features, civil rights landmarks and EV charging stations.

Pocket-sized sustainability maps have been produced and are distributed to new students, staff and guests during campus events.

Every year, during new student orientation in the fall, the Office of Sustainability Initiatives staff lead a one-hour walking tour for all interested students and parents.

Upon request, campus sustainability tours to discuss the WaterHub, the Recycling Center, the Educational Gardens, LEED buildings and Sustainable Food are led for Emory classes, for elementary school classes, for conferences and for colleagues from other universities.

Emory's "Living Green: Sustainability in the 21st Century Living Learning Community" is a program available to first year students at Emory which fosters student commitment to a living green lifestyle through various hall programs. The Resident Advisors, Sophomore Advisors, Residence Hall Association Sustainability Chairs and the Sustainability Graduate Fellow (in FY 2017 only) all work to create sustainability-related programming and to promote sustainable lifestyles.

From fall 2012 to Spring 2018, Green Action was a Second Year at Emory living-learning community that built upon the theme of Living Green into the second year residence life experience. This community occupied one floor of the Woodruff Residential Center. Residents had active voices in what’s included in the residential programming, events, and education of this sustainable community. Residents also had an opportunity to sit on a Green Action leadership council to control programming and events that took place in Woodruff Residential Center, within the Second Year at Emory program, and among the greater Emory and Atlanta communities.

In 2018, Residence Life opened up the opportunity for third- and fourth-year student residents living on Emory's Clairmont campus to join the Garden-themed floor. In 2017, the Faculty-in-Residence worked with OSI and the Grounds department to bring an Educational Garden plot to the Clairmont campus. Once the Garden was established, students who were interested in tending the Garden together and learning about sustainable food in general applied to live on the community immersion floor. They also took a 1-credit course together on sustainable food systems and gardening.

Additionally, before all new student residents arrive on campus, they receive an electronic sustainability pre-arrival guide, as well as a sustainable shopping list and move-in instructions intended to help students and their families reduce and divert waste. Here is an example of one of these guides: https://sustainability.emory.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/CollegeSustainabilityGuide20.pdf

OSI has also informally distributed, through tabling and orientation events, removable wall clings to students and staff who place them on light switches, on paper towel dispensers and next to printers to remind community members to use less energy and paper.

Certified Green Offices and Green Labs receive their own tailored wall clings that indicate how office and lab members can make simple behavioral changes to reduce energy, water and other resource usage in these spaces as well.

Data reported for 2016-2017, 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 academic year.