Organizational Culture

Metric #9: Nutrition

This START metric is about promoting a nutritious diet in a sustainable manner through accessible activities and programs. Whether it’s providing nutritional information for school lunches, running ‘Meatless Mondays’, or a farm-to-school program, each activity/ program will have an educational component that ensures an enduring impact.

Metric #10: Outreach Campaigns

This START metric is about connecting with and improving the wider community. Every year, schools will engage in sustainability-related outreach campaigns that pursue measurable results and have active and educational components, such as No Idling Campaigns, midnight runs, electronics-recycling campaigns or community gardens. Unlike events, campaigns may last a few weeks or even a few months, but conclude once they have fulfilled their aim.

Metric #11: Communications

This START metric is about providing ongoing, formal communication about the school’s sustainability programs and progress to the school community. This could be in the form of social media posts, websites, annual reports, newsletters, or in-person presentations.

Metric #12: Community Service

This START metric is about providing students with information about or access to community service opportunities. Students will contribute to their wider communities through activities that benefit others (e.g. reading to the elderly), animals (e.g. caring for dogs at a shelter) or the earth (e.g. tree-planting).

Metric #13: Local Partnerships

This START metric is about connecting and collaborate with a non-school entity from the surrounding community (e.g. school districts, government agencies, non-profit organizations) to advance economic, environmental and/or social sustainability. For example, creating donation hubs or helping with invasives-removal.

Metric #14: Governance

This START metric is about developing transparency and stakeholder engagement at all levels of governance, including financial oversight, personnel management, and strategic planning. Stakeholders should have their views welcomed and considered, and be kept informed and included in the decision-making process when appropriate.

Metric #15: Purchasing

This START metric is about procuring sustainable products that have environmental, social and economic benefits, and protect both public health and the environment over their whole life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials until their final disposal. This runs the gamut from food, furniture and stationery to cleaning products, clothing, transport and electricity.

Metric #16: Strategic Planning

This START metric is about committing to environmental, economic and social sustainability when establishing the direction and long-term goals of the school, as well as the action plans your school will use to reach them.

Metric #17: Sustainability Committee

This START metric is about having a dedicated committee responsible for steering the school’s environmental efforts and advancing sustainability projects on campus.

Metric #18: Sustainability Coordinator

This START metric is about having a school employee responsible for managing the school’s broad sustainability efforts.

Metric #19: Sustainability Planning

This START metric is about outlining your school’s definition of sustainability, as well as your specific sustainability goals, including specific sustainability targets, such as eliminating plastic cutlery from the cafeteria, or reducing greenhouse gas emissions by a specified amount within a given timeframe.

Metric #20: Equity Coordination

This START metric is about having an equity and inclusion committee that promotes equal opportunity, fairness and freedom from bias within your school. It will work to advance the goals of recognizing, respecting and valuing differences, such as ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation or identity, age, religion, disability, socio-economic status, etc.

Metric #21: Equity Support

This START metric is about implementing diversity, equity and inclusion strategies to help underrepresented or underserved groups. (e.g. advance employee diversity, address funding disparities, ensure handicap accessibility, achievement-gap reduction, address bullying, etc.)

Metric #22: Low-Income Accessibility

This START metric is about preventing money from being a barrier to student involvement or success in your community - student enrollment of at least 2-5% low-income students. To achieve this, schools can offer financial assistance or flexible tuition.

Metric #23: Employee Feedback

This START metric is about allowing the people who work at your school to provide feedback in order to address issues and cultivate a safe, healthy and happy workplace for all.

Metric #24: Employee Training

This START metric is about educating employees (faculty, office, grounds and other staff) in sustainability -- including environmental and social efforts and standards within the school, as well as to increase their awareness of these issues on a broader level.

Metric #25: Networking

This START metric is about exchanging sustainability-related ideas, insights, information and best practices between schools. The Green Schools Alliance is an example of such a network, but your school should participate in other sustainability networks too, including at least 2 school-to-school networks.

Metric #26: Employee Wellness

This START metric is about promoting the physical and psychological wellness of all school employees, from administrators and faculty members to office staff, facilities managers and custodians. Examples of actions include mindfulness or nutrition training, community gyms, medical screenings and services, financial planning and counseling.

Metric #27: Physical Activity

This START metric is about providing organized physical activity opportunities to students, beyond what individual states mandate. Schools should prioritize time spent outdoors (weather permitting) and provide a variety of before-, in- or after- school activities, such as sports teams, jogathons, yoga sessions or dance breaks.

Metric #28: Student Wellness Committee

This START metric is about having an adult group that advances the health and well-being of students according to the committee’s priorities, and eventually implementing policies and programs for student wellness.