Glossary of Terms

Change Management
A structured approach to change in individuals, teams, organizations and societies that enables the transition from a current state to a desired future state. Change management provides a framework for managing the people side of these changes.

Climate Neutral
The effort to offset the carbon footprint (CO2 emissions) of an organization through investments in sustainable energy, agriculture, reforestation and energy efficiency, whose benefits offset or avoid an amount of CO2 equivalent to the organization's carbon emissions.

Cultural and Biological Diversity
The adaptive interweave of people, language, place, culture and ecology, which is a source of exchange, innovation, creativity and cultural diversity. (Adapted from UNESCO.)

Energy Management Plans
The plans to implement energy efficiency projects such as sustainable green buildings, renovations, and wind or solar farms that will move the college toward energy independence. (Energy Policy Handbook)

Environmental Literacy
To have a basic comprehension of environmental sustainability, natural capital, exponential growth, carrying capacity, environmental history, ecology, biodiversity, energy, resources, pollution prevention, waste reduction, ethics, economic and political systems. ("Living in
the Environment" text)

Environmental Performance
Incorporates continuous improvement and refers to continuous reduction of social, environmental, and social risks and impacts, over time, and continuous enhancement of social, environmental, and financial opportunities over time.

Green Building
A building that has been designed to reduce both direct and indirect environmentalconsequences associated with construction, occupancy, operation, maintenance, and eventual decommissioning, whose design is evaluated for cost, quality of life, future flexibility, ease of maintenance, energy and resource efficiency, and overall environmental impact, with an emphasis on life-cycle cost analysis. (Energy Policy Handbook)

Interested Parties - see Stakeholder

Personal Sustainability
Plans and actions that individuals take at all ages of their life to help ensure their physical, social and financial sustainability.

Social Equity
Decisions and actions that require that we recognize the values and norms of other peoples and that our decisions and actions are guided by notions of justice and fairness that accept the integrity and validity of other cultures and lifestyles. (Adapted from United Nations University Press)

Stakeholder
Refers to anyone who is affected or perceives him/herself to be affected by the college.Given the college's commitment to enhanced community engagement or involvement, the role of stakeholders is a critical continuing theme in this report.

"Stakeholders" and "interested parties" are used interchangeably in this report.

Stakeholders can include internal stakeholders (or interested parties), such as staff, faculty, administration and students, or external stakeholders (interested parties), such as families of employees, faculty, staff and students, other community members, regulators, the legislature and the college district, or suppliers of the college.

The term "community" usually means those who live or work or govern or go to school in an organization's hometown or city and often means the people who are nearby neighbors of the institution.

Stewardship
Having an ethical responsibility toward nature. Encouraging environmentally beneficial forms of economic growth in part by using energy and resources wisely. ("Living in the Environment" text)

Sustainability
To utilize components of social, cultural and biological diversity in a way and rate
that does not lead to long-term decline, thereby maintaining the potential to meet the needs and
aspirations of present and future generations. (Adapted from the Conventions of Biological
Diversity)

Sustainability Performance
Incorporate the notion of continuous improvement and refer to continuous reduction of social, environmental, and social risks and impacts, over time, and continuous enhancement of social, environmental, and financial opportunities over time.