Green Office Challenge / Home

  • 15 Participating Offices
  • 758 Participating People
  • 41.5 Average Score

The UIC Green Office Challenge is a friendly competition between offices at UIC.  It was designed to help more than 11,000 faculty and staff at UIC take an active role in creating a greener and more sustainable campus.

UIC has pledged to dramatically reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate global climate change.  The UIC Climate Action Plan outlines our commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions related to campus operations by 80% by 2050.  To accomplish this ambitious goal, everyone on campus has an important role to play.

How it works

Offices work through the Challenge using the Green Office Challenge Checklist to calculate their green scores. This Checklist includes a number of sustainability initiatives within 6 focus areas:

  • Energy Management
  • Recycling and Waste Reduction
  • Office Supplies
  • Food and Beverage
  • Transportation
  • Networking and Engagement
preview the green office challenge checklist

Every initiative on the Green Office Challenge Checklist is assigned a point value. Each item's point value reflects how much of an impact that initiative will have on reducing UIC's greenhouse gas emissions and/or how difficult that initiative is to implement.

Offices will use the Checklist to track their progress through the Challenge. The first thing a participating office will do is complete the Checklist, mark off any initiative that they are already doing, and establish their 'baseline score.' From there, offices will strive to check more and more initiatives off the list, and accumulate higher 'green scores.'

See what other offices have achieved so far.

Benefits of Participating

Green Office Challenge participating offices earn an excellent green credential. This is especially significant since many view green values as increasingly important criteria in choosing where they will work or study. Along with encouraging offices to cut back on waste and increase efficiency, participation in the Green Office Challenge can have the added benefit of saving money for UIC offices.

When participating in the Challenge, offices on campus:

  • Earn recognition on the Office of Sustainability's website and in other e-publications
  • Receive physical media (i.e. posters) to publicly display their participation in their buildings
  • Receive digital media (i.e. a web-badge) to indicate on their website so visitors see the office is a Challenge participant.

To learn more about the process of the Green Office Challenge, view the suggested timeline.