The University of Florida has committed to Carbon Neutrality by 2025, and has also committed to working toward Zero Waste. In response to these goals and to respond to individuals’ wishes to be more environmentally sustainable at work, we have created the GROW program to support offices and departments in their efforts towards a more sustainable future. Additionally, through the GROW program, we are able to work directly with offices and departments on issues most relevant to their needs and provide targeted resources and advice.

An office is a work area (administrative, academic or service) that shares common areas and resources. It may include just one or all of the offices within a unit or division. You may have an office of 6 people or 60 people — we do require, however, a minimum of 3 people participating. Please include part-time and full-time staff, students (including interns) and faculty. Your office should include kitchens, meeting rooms, storage rooms and other commonly shared areas.

Step 1: Commit

• Ensure that your leadership will approve time required for the GROW program. We estimate time to be less than 5 minutes per person for the application, a 1-hour site visit, and a follow-up 30 minute meeting to review our recommendations
• Ensure that you have the support of a majority of your colleagues. The most successful offices are ones that have buy-in from as many employees as possible. It’s not a requirement for every individual to be part of the program, but we strongly encourage as much participation as possible.
• Choose a lead coordinator for your office to complete this initial survey and to be our main point of contact for coordinating the walk-through and interview.

Step 2: Assess

• Once the initial survey is completed, we will send a link to a survey to everyone in the office to complete
• The lead coordinator will be responsible for working with the Office of Sustainability to schedule a time for both the interview/site visit and follow-up meeting.

Step 3: Implement

• After the interview and site visit, we will provide your office with a report that includes your level of certification and suggestions for how your office can address any sustainability challenges, or how your office can work to become an even more efficient and green workspace.