Melissa Radiwon, RRS
[email protected]

Outreach and education around recovery programs is never a one-and-done job. Anya Dale and Tracy Artley of the University of Michigan Office of Campus Sustainability talked about the importance of continuous stakeholder engagement during their breakout session at the Michigan Recycling Coalition 37th Annual Conference. 

Engagement at a university needs to be continuous due to the fact that there are new students entering campus each semester. And with any organization, you have staff turnover. In addition, recycling messages can get old and need to be restated. 

Most people think of stakeholders as those who have an interest in the business at hand. Dale and Artley explained that a stakeholder is anyone who has an impact on or is impacted by the program. That means faculty, staff, students, visitors, event attendees, caterers, vendors, and more. 

Engagement means more than simply talking at people. You need to be tuned into their motivations to connect them with the program. 

The University of Michigan has a goal of reducing the tonnage of waste sent to disposal facilities by 40% by 2025. Steps have been taken to move them toward that goal, including organics composting. Currently, grounds waste is used on campus, while food waste and other compostables are sent to WeCare Denali compost operations in Ann Arbor. 

Dale and Artley explained how the program is evolving by taking on different parts of university life. The organics composting program is in the residential dining halls - collecting pre- and post-consumer materials. MCatering, the group serving the university's Ann Arbor campus, offers zero-waste catering services for on-campus meetings and events. 

The Office of Sustainability provides the financial and technical assistance, including signage and collection boxes, at on-campus zero-waste events. The hosting department needs to put "skin in the game" and be engaged - communicating with the caterer, understanding what is legitimately compostable, training volunteers, and providing set-up/clean-up. 

Engaging the catering vendors and providing support on being zero-waste ready has been key to changing the culture on campus. The university hosts an annual catering showcase that allows catering vendors to engage with different university department event planners. The most recent showcase boasted 29 of the 30 caterers with zero-waste capabilities. 

Even after an event is set up for material collection, there are still challenges. Dale and Artley stressed the importance of training volunteers and having enough volunteers to engage event attendees. Having a volunteer at each collection station to enforce or educate attendees on what materials go into which bin is key. However, the bigger the event, the less one-on-one engagement volunteers will have due to shear volume of visitors and due to urgent situations that call volunteers away. 

The university is also extending composting to staff areas, but in a tiered system. Staff areas start with a countertop bin with liners and signage for food waste and compostables. Department staff are responsible for taking the bins to the dock to empty. Once the countertop bin has shown success, departments can graduate to full kitchen composting and larger free-standing bins. That also means more responsibility - more education and monitoring, procurement changes, identifying ambassadors, and training the full department. 

Dale and Artley stated that even starting with zero-waste events and the step-wise system for staff areas, they still face contamination issues. That is where the never-give-up spirit and continuous effort come into play with trying different methods to engage people and reinforce the message. 

One area the university has been engaged in for 30 years is recycling. The program began in 1989 and has become commonplace. Only the lack of a recycling program is noticeable. That presents a different issue - how do you engage the campus community in a program than many either think they already know about or just don't care? 

Dale and Artley offered tools to engage stakeholders in a long-standing program: 

• Novelty: Keep things new - bins, signs, branding
• Access: Ensure stakeholders have access to resources
• Responsiveness: Email address w/24-hour response time, addressing issues in a timely manner
• Motivation: Different angles are needed for different audiences (e.g. competition, right thing to do, president's initiative, etc.)
• Be Present: Take the message to the stakeholders (e.g. brown bag lunches, department newsletters, staff meetings, etc.)

A zero-waste program is not one where you can check boxes and call it done. You must have continuous stakeholder engagement, mechanisms for feedback to improve, and motivation from multiple angles. Both Dale and Artley agreed - the job of stakeholder engagement is never done!