Partnerships
Our success as a world-class university is due in part to the spirit of collaboration we foster across the UVA Community. Only through the power of partnership will we collectively create sustainable, equitable places to live, learn, work, and play.
The Office for Sustainability’s local, regional and national strategic partnerships include:
Resilient Together is a County, City, and UVA collaborative planning and implementation process designed to ensure our community is strong, safe, and healthy in the face of a changing climate.
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.
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.
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.
ACC Sports Sustainability Network
The Atlantic Coast Conference is a leader in collegiate athletics, academics, and sustainability programs. The Mission is to lead and cultivate the collective strengths and expertise of ACC member institutions to create impact for people, planet and future through innovative sports sustainability practice.
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.
UVA is a member of the National Capital Chapter of the I2SL, the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories. They provide essential resources, networking and best practice sharing in service of their mission to advance sustainable laboratories globally.
AASHE Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education UVA is a member of AASHE, a national organization whose mission is to inspire and catalyze higher education to lead the global sustainability transformation. They empower higher education faculty, administrators, staff and students to be effective change agents and drivers of sustainability innovation. We take advantage of their plentiful resources, information-sharing bulletin, professional development, and other benefits.
Ivy Plus Sustainability Consortium
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 consortium holds quarterly meetings and produce an annual report for EVPs focused on current sustainability trends and on the important role sustainability plays in its member institutions’ operations. The meetings also provide member institutions with the opportunity to identify how the group can become much greater than the sum of its parts.
Other partnerships
UVA Office for Sustainability also connects with numerous local nonprofit sustainability organizations on outreach and specific projects to advance sustainability in the region.