UVA’s success as a world-class university is due in part to the spirit of collaboration we foster across Grounds.  Only through the power of partnership will we collectively create sustainable, equitable places to live, learn, work, and play.

The Office for Sustainability’s regional and national strategic partnerships include:

• 
  Ivy+ and Listening Post Collaborative: UVA is one of 30 leading research institutions in the U.S. actively sharing knowledge and engaging in parallel study to accelerate the impact of their sustainability policies and programs and to inform institutional priorities. The group comprises sustainability office staff who leverage collective resources -- such as best practice updates and data reporting – for strategic sustainability initiatives and who advise Listening Post EVP-COOs (a separate peer-to-peer sharing group of executive business officers) based on identified best practices. The collaborative was initiated by Princeton University’s EVP-COO in late 2007, with the aim that the schools’ sustainability staff collaborate in a cohort-based, campus-as-lab approach. Current working groups include Carbon Neutrality and Data, Carbon Pricing and Offsets, and Justice-Equity-Diversity-Inclusion. Current schools in the Collaborative include: UVA, Brown, Caltech, The University of Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, George Washington, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, University of Miami, University of Michigan, MIT, NYU, Northeastern, Notre Dame, UPenn, Princeton, University of Rochester, University of Southern California, Stanford, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Wisconsin Madison, and Yale.
• Southeast Campus Sustainability Network: The network brings together the primary sustainability managers from colleges and universities in the Southeast, from Maryland to Texas. The group operates under a democratic governance model and hosts monthly conference calls and annual regional gathering to advance sustainability leadership via facilitated discussions, best practice sharing, collaboration, and networking.
• ACC Sports Sustainability Network: The Atlantic Coast Conference is a leader in collegiate athletics, academics, and sustainability programs. Members from each ACC campus meet virtually four times per year to unite and leverage these strengths, showcase their collective impacts, learn from peers, and create a national platform to magnify the ACC’s winning traditions.
• Virginia Association of Sustainability in Higher Education: The consortium is a network of sustainability professionals working in institutions of higher education across Virginia. The mission of VASHE is to provide these professionals with opportunities to share best practices, resources, and lessons learned, and to collaborate across a wide range of sustainability initiatives in higher education.
• The College of William & Mary:  In 2019, the presidents of University of Virginia and William & Mary - James E. Ryan and Dr. Katherine Rowe - formed a partnership to advance each institution’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030 A joint Climate Action 2030 Committee consisting of staff, faculty, and students from each institution is charged with identifying common opportunities and challenges that benefit the universities’ progress and connect experts to explore and implement action. The committee is focused on the operational aspects of the carbon neutrality goal with strong connections to engagement, curriculum, and research opportunities.
• 
  Climate Action Together:  In 2019, the City of Charlottesville, Albemarle County, and the University of Virginia launched Climate Action Together, a collaborative effort to inform and engage the community as each entity develops their climate action plans and progresses toward reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.

LOCAL COLLABORATION

Additionally, the UVA Office for Sustainability connects with local nonprofit sustainability organizations on outreach and specific projects to advance sustainability in the region, including:

• US Green Building Council - Virginia
• Cville100
• Community Climate Collaborative 
• Charlottesville Food Justice Network
• Generation 180
• Local Energy Alliance Program
• Piedmont Group, Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club