DUP "Green Team" Celebrates Accomplishments
The Duke University Press hosted a "Green Team Coffee Break" event last week to share some of the headway their office's sustainability team has made in addressing the group's environmental impact. Roughly 50 Press employees and affiliates stopped by to hear the team's recommendations for future improvements and learn more about the environmental benefits and cost savings from initiatives promoting waste minimization, energy conservation and common sense tricks, such as making double-sided printing the default setting.
The savings from these initiaves helped to pay area sculptor Susan Wells to craft wood-fired coffee mugs for all of the employees. In addition to eliminating the waste created by throwing away disposable coffee cups each day, the investment keeps money in the local economy and local, organic, shade-grown coffee in employees' mugs.
While the Duke Press Green Team may not be the first group of its kind to wrestle with office environmental problems at Duke, it may owe much of its success to the creation of a related, "Sustainable Living Group." The Duke Press' Sustainable Living Group meets, like a book club, to watch films such as Kilowatt Ours, and discuss Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegatable, Miracle and explore innovative solutions to environmental problems. The Sustainable Living Group is intimately connected to global sustainability issues, and has worked closely with the Green Team to find local, tangible solutions to environmental problems in the workplace, with significant results.
Some of the Green Team initiatives, such as a commitment to using 100% post-consumer paper and purchasing only compostable plates and cutlery have meant additional costs, but the group points out these costs are exceeded by the savings of other initiatives. Other department and office Green Teams have had similar success identifying cost-saving opportunities to conserve resources in their unit's day-to-day operation. Given current budget challenges, Green Teams present a viable strategy for achieving more efficient operations at Duke, while shrinking the institutions greenhouse gas footprint.
If you're interested in starting a Green Team in your office or department, shoot us an email.