THE PROGRAM FORMAT:

UnCommon Sense integrates education and peer-support by requiring businesses to attend five group workshops over a two-year period and participate in monthly teleconferences. Each training module explains how to conduct self audits, make operational improvements and measure and communicate results. In addition, participants are assigned to a “learning team” led by an experienced advisor who serves as a resource and coach.

Module 1 (Workshop 1): Leading the Way
In Leading the Way, businesses gain knowledge about initiating and managing organizational change: they learn how to organize a sustainability working group, identify internal champions, create a sustainability mission statement, and communicate that mission with employees and clientele.

Module 2 (Workshop 1): Waste-Stream Management
Module 2 looks at effectively reducing waste, segregating the waste stream, and cost-effectively transferring waste to its next destination.  Businesses learn how to identify local and regional waste management resources, and how to audit and measure their waste stream.  They create a system for reduction, reuse and recycling and communicate their waste management policies with their employees.

Module 3 (Workshop 2): Responsible Purchasing
Responsible purchasing means to consider what is in the products that are used to operate each business and from where those products come.  Businesses learn how to create a purchasing tracking matrix to track information on purchasing habits.  They create a purchasing policy and communicate with vendors the implications of their new policy.  They also identify products to analyze for preferred alternatives.

Module 4 (Workshop 2): Social & Community Investment
Module 4 helps businesses build strong social structures to strengthen their businesses AND enhance the social fabric of their communities.  Businesses learn how to define social sustainability both inside and outside their organizational walls, and develop a work plan for social sustainability. 

Module 5 (Workshop 3): Resource Management—Energy Efficiencies
In the Energy Efficiencies module, businesses learn how to complete baseline energy audits and create a system for tracking their usage.  They plan for and implement facility improvements, and track the results over the course of the program. 

Module 6 (Workshop 3): Resource Management—Water Efficiencies
Water use is an important, and sometimes overlooked, component of sustainability.  In Module 6, businesses learn how to complete a baseline for water usage and track utility data, and how to identify areas with the greatest potential for improvements.

Module 7 (Workshop 4): Transportation Efficiencies
The Transportation Efficiencies module looks at how people and goods are moved across the region, and how customers access each business.  Businesses perform a baseline audit to identify transportation needs, and they learn about CAFÉ standards and local alternative fuels and transportation options.

Module 8 (Workshop 4): The Business Response to Climate Change
The Business Response to Climate Change is the “Closing the Loop” module.  Businesses learn about Greenhouse Gas Inventories, Carbon Offset programs, species extinction, and other environmental issues not yet addressed.  From that point they decide, “What next?”

Program Review and Graduation (Workshop 5)
Learning Teams report on their individual and collective progress; participants receive certificate of program completion.