How Green Can You Be? Enter the Green Devil X Challenge

For Emily Skoczlas, pursuing a Green Workplace Certification for her workplace – the Wilson Recreation Center – was an easy call.

She led a team that convinced co-workers to use recycled copier paper, turn off lights and computers when not needed and bring utensils from home instead of using disposable ones.

“Just thinking about sustainability in general and knowing we can make a difference and help the environment, we decided we should get involved,” said Skoczlas, coordinator for facilities and reservations for Duke Recreation and Physical Education.

Now Skoczlas and her colleagues are ready to see how green they can be once more when they take part in Duke’s Green Devil X Challenge, which runs through April and offers prizes for teams and individuals from the University and Health System who champion sustainable behavior.

If a group representing an office, classroom, lab or dorm completes its green certification in April, it will be entered into a drawing for one of five $1,000 grants, which can be used for a sustainability and wellness related project.

If individual participants complete two of the challenges contained in an email sent each week in April, they will be entered into a drawing to win sustainability and wellness basket with items such as a reusable water bottle, tote bag, and items from the Duke Energy Initiative and DuWell.

To participate in the Green Devil X Challenge, organizations and individuals can sign up here.

Since 2011, the Green Workplace Certification program has singled out community members who take steps to reduce their environmental impact and work toward Duke’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2024. Originally geared toward offices, in recent years the program expanded to include labs, classrooms and student housing.

And now, in time for the Green Devil X Challenge, the checklist of actions needed to earn the Green Certification has been updated to include simple behaviors such asking caterers to use local, organic produce and using meeting rooms with natural light. There’s also a new section for wellness, featuring activities such as providing spaces where employees can access natural light.

If you’ve already completed the Green Certification, your office, lab, classroom or dorm can still participate in the challenge by recertifying according to the new standards. For Skoczlas and her team, going through the Green Certification process in 2016 yielded satisfying results.

While many steps were simple, others involved a little more work.

Wilson Recreation Center goes through about 160 rolls of disposable cleaning wipes every three months.

When Skoczlas and her colleagues discovered the wipes could be used as compost, they worked with housekeepers from Duke Facilities Management to get the wipes from specially-marked bins into the hands of an outside company that turned them to compost, thus reducing waste.

Once certification was complete, staff members at Wilson Recreation Center took pride in being mindful of their environmental impact and helping Duke get closer to its sustainability goals.

“It’s a lot about changing your mindset,” Skoczlas said. “I think it makes people feel like they’re doing something that makes a difference in the environment and for the overall goal of sustainability at Duke.”