UNC Charlotte Is Green Conference Award Winner | Office of Public Relations

CHARLOTTE – Jan. 28, 2013 – UNC Charlotte is a recipient of this year’s Charlotte Chamber Wells Fargo Green Award sponsored by the GreenWorks Committee. The presentation was made at the Chamber’s NorthWest Chapter’s Green Conference at Pine Island Country Club on Jan. 17.

This year's awards recognized two member companies in two different categories:

Green -- A company that represents innovative “green” business with clean energy production, distribution, or storage, energy efficiency, environmentally friendly production, conservation and pollution mitigation industries, and training and support within these industries.
Non-green - Having implemented an innovative green product, service or process; created an environment that fosters and encourages creative green thinking; and whose experience has been shared with, and can benefit, other businesses or the greater community.

UNC Charlotte earned its title in the Green category from a simple idea discussed in departmental meetings that developed into a campus-wide initiative. The idea was to remove trash cans from all of the classrooms and reduce the size of the trash bin in all of the offices. Working together, the Housekeeping and Recycling departments created a fundamental shift in operations by taking the focus off the trash and putting it on resources and recycling.

This simple shift has increased recycling of bottles and cans in all academic buildings by 25 percent over the last two years and increased office recycling by 10 to 15 percent in the last few months. Everyone at UNC Charlotte is an integral part of the team and essential as they create a green campus.

Habitat for Humanity, winner of the non-green division, began building LEED certified homes in 2011. Since then, they have developed a template to achieve LEED certification on all future projects. As a result, Habitat Charlotte homeowners will not only enjoy the benefits of more comfortable indoor temperatures and healthier air quality, but also be able to realize sizeable savings on their utilities bills.

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