Green Offices
What is a Green Office?
A Green Office (GO) is a platform for sustainability that is established and run by students with the support of the university or Applied Sciences school staff members. The primary goal of a GO is to ensure that the institution is becoming more sustainable in all its facets. This way, the sustainable initiatives of GOs become more visible and thus the involvement of students on sustainability is stimulated.
The Green Office Model is created by rootAbility and consists of six principles, it::
- exists of students and staff;
- has the official mandate to encourage sustainability in the higher education institution;
- also receives funding to achieve the above;
- is integrated in the organisational structure of the institution;
- collaborates with internal and external parties;
- demonstrates how this change can be achieved through training.
GOs aim to ensure sustainability in all facets of a university or college, in both the academic curriculum and operations.
- The academic role covers the role of the higher education within society: What do we teach our students? Does the institution’s research lead towards making the society more sustainable? How are students and staff stimulated to get engaged in sustainability?
- The execution is more about practical matters that influence the ecological foot print of the institution and cover therefore energy, catering, buildings, waste, biodiversity and more.
Green Office Coordinator: Martine Gerrits
Hi! Nice to meet you, I’m Martine, your new Green Office Coordinator. As your Green Office Coordinator I’ll assist your GO, answer your questions, provide you with information, share knowledge and connect you to the right people and organisations. Of course we’ll be meeting soon or maybe we already did. In the next few months I’m going to visit most of the offices to get to know you, your team, what you are working on and to assist you wherever you need. Don’t hesitate, just invite me so you can show off all the good work you’ve been doing for the past months. For invites, questions or suggestions, mail to greenoffice@studentenvoormorgen.nl.
Green Offices that are members of Studenten voor Morgen are:
- Green Office VU
- Green Office UvA
- Leiden University Green Office
- GreenTU Delft
- Erasmus Sustainability Hub
- Green Office Avans
- Green Office Maastricht
- Green Office TU Eindhoven
Would you like to start you own Green Office? Find more information at www.greenofficemovement.org. If you have questions, please contact Felix Spira at felix.spira@rootability.com.
