Driving Office Sustainability at ASU

Driving Sustainable Behavior in the Office at Arizona State
Executive Summary
07/17/2019
David Faught
The office of University Sustainability Practices (USP) has been
mandated by Arizona State leadership to increase sustainability and decrease
negative impacts in the University’s operations. Understanding that human
behavior change is difficult and yet at the core of its efforts, USP has a variety
of initiatives designed to enable more sustainable outcomes at ASU. One of the
primary initiatives is USP’s sustainability certification programs. These
voluntary programs cover most aspects of university life (events, classrooms,
sports, offices, etc), and are intended to provide users with a set of achievable
sustainability standards. Users who meet these standards are awarded
certifications at one of three levels to reflect their accomplishments.
Unfortunately, the certification program has shown mixed results and
has thus far failed to help ASU achieve its sustainability goals. USP needs to
find ways to increase the participation and performance on the certifications.
This is a big challenge. Over 17,000 employees work at ASU’s campuses
in the Salt River Valley, and every office is unique. They vary in size, energy
consumption, and architecture. There is uncertainty on how to define an office
unit, and who is eligible to pursue the certification on behalf of their office.
Outreach and incentive programs are still embryonic if they exist at all. The
certification is not rigorously coordinated with other sustainability efforts at
ASU, such as the Zero Waste initiative, and ASU’s Green Purchasing Guidelines.
Although ASU remains a national leader in sustainability, too often, the left
hand doesn’t know what the right is doing in regards to comprehensive
change efforts.
The main focus of the project was to help USP identify deficiencies in the
reach and performance of the ASU Sustainability Certification for Offices. The
importance of identifying barriers to desired results and intervention points
where improvements can be made was discussed in depth. An approach
known as Community Based Social Marketing (CBSM) was agreed upon as an
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effective paradigm to understand the problems and opportunities facing the
certification. CBSM holds that only the explicit identification of target
audiences (sub-groups of ASU staff) and the barriers they perceive, will reveal
intervention points effective for that audience. USP needed high quality
qualitative research to enable this process of discovering the barriers to
greater sustainability perceived by ASU staff, and how they can eliminate
them. USP’s ultimate vision and desired outcome for this project was to
identify reasons why engagement with the office certification isn’t higher, and
to use that information to make the office certification an effective driver of
sustainability at ASU, creating economic, environmental, and social benefits
for the members of the ASU community.
To execute the project mandate, an online survey was created and sent
to 504 semi-randomly chosen ASU office staff members. The survey garnered
109 complete responses, a response rate of 21.62%. Researchers also
conducted two focus groups and one individual interview. The interviews
were designed to solicit open ended responses that are not possible on a
multiple choice survey. Analysis of the data provided insight to some of USP’s
key questions, such as who is interested in pursuing the certification and why?
The results of the research were successful in gaining critical knowledge
about the beliefs of ASU office workers. The exposition of a knowledge gap
about sustainability and USP’s initiatives was a key finding. For respondents
who expressed interest in pursuing the office certification, the biggest reason
given for not doing so was that they did not know there was a certification
available. Staff perceptions that certifications were undue time and energy
burdens also stood out. Respondents who said they were not interested in
pursuing the certification gave a lack of time or ability as their primary
reasons.
Survey outcomes contrast with earlier findings that have shown that
over 80% of ASU workers believe that being environmentally responsible in
the workplace is important. The new insights complement existing data to
provide the high level clarity that USP has been seeking. Although the vast
majority of ASU staff want to be more sustainable, they just don’t know where
to begin. Staff are also somewhat intimidated by what they think being more
sustainable entails. Their intimidation can largely be attributed to lack of
information, as minimal time and effort are required to realize many
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sustainability benefits, such as turning off a personal computer when it is not
in use.
Project findings will allow USP to design effective outreach and
educational tools to empower staff at ASU to be more sustainable. Future
efforts can proceed directly from the recommendations and insights provided
by the project.
For next steps, USP should create follow up surveys, using this project’s
methods. The surveys should drill down deeper into key findings to elicit
more nuanced understandings of what motivates behavior change at ASU.
USP can also create a robust educational supplement for the
certification. For example, a creative, supplemental toolkit could inform and
entertain the user. Relevant links and anecdotes can be embedded within the
certification questions, or in a separate format or location. Whenever possible,
supplemental information should tell a compelling story. Anecdotes and case
studies should be ASU-centric, and designed to inspire the user, that if others
have achieved success in their efforts, then it is possible for them as well.
Formal outreach and awareness campaigns are the next major steps to be
taken. If done correctly, these follow on efforts should create dramatic
improvements in ASU’s ongoing sustainability efforts.

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