Systems Analysis to Improve Sustainable Event Management at Florida Tech

Abstract

The Sustainability Program at Florida Tech has over thirty requests for participation at events annually. This project brings a systems perspective to organizing and implementing for these dense event management tasks, with a focus on the busy spring semester at Florida Tech. Planning the timing and obtaining the resources in people-hours and expenses is challenging, particularly due to the high density of sustainability events in the spring, which terminates with Earth Day, which is celebrated across Earth Week at Florida Tech The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education sponsors the premier campus sustainability certification program, the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS). Florida Tech could receive credits towards this certification from improved event planning. Florida Tech currently does not have a Sustainable Events Plan, although such a plan would improve coordination of events. The project goal is to build a systems-based approach to improve coordination and execution of sustainability events. This goal will be achieved by these objectives: • To inventory and tabulate the metrics for sustainability related events both on and off campus to improve system efficiency. • To apply findings from Objective 1 to improve best practices for Earth Week at Florida Tech. • To apply Florida Tech student event activities to achieve credits for up to 10 STARS green campus certification points.