March 2016 Sustainability Profile: Diane Lallemand

Each month, our newsletter features a person or group on campus that is working toward a more sustainable world. This month features Diane Lallemand, the Principal Analyst for Records and Policy Coordination and organizer of Disposition Day, the campus-wide event that encourages safe and secure destruction of confidential files through recycling.

What is your title on campus?
I’m the Principal Analyst for Records and Policy Coordination. I oversee the Chancellor's administrative archive and act as Campus Records Manager, providing guidance to campus business offices on system-wide records management policies and practices. Other side of my job is the policy coordination. I work with campus leadership in the vetting and approval processes of administrative policies that have broad application to the local campus community.

What does “sustainability” mean to you?
I think sustainability is an emerging field of study that is too often pigeon holed into topics like recycling or saving kilowatt hours. Those things are extremely important and excellent starting points. But broadly, the word “sustainability”, for me, encourages an understanding of all ecological relationships with the goal of reaching a stable equilibrium between the interdependencies of living things and life providing resources.

Sometimes sustainability can come off as “what are the set of actions that would ensure humans stay dominant in the future”. But, I like to focus on what we can do to the balance factors.

On a personal behavior level, it means always looking for ways to improve efficiency, reduce consumables, fix rather than replace, encourage my family to think critically about their behavior, and support the visionaries who can lead actual change. What it doesn’t mean to me is running out and getting the hottest “green” product and putting my old one in the landfill.

What made you interested in sustainability?
It feels good (laughs). I mean, it’s the same feeling I get after spring cleaning. The largest role that people play in the issue is one of “consumer”. Over consuming is actually stressful. Taking only what I can use and using what I take leaves more time and energy for me to be wholly engaged with my family and friends.

Have you had a favorite sustainability moment at UCSC?
My favorite moment comes one a year; the day my office makes its biggest impact, Disposition Day. Each year we reach out to departments and ask that they go through their files and dispose of records that have passed their retention date according the UC Records Retention Schedule. On Disposition Day, we provide a service to pick up the confidential records for secured shredding free of charge. This year we removed 5,034 pounds (or 2.5 tons) of paper from the campus. To understand the impact paper can play in the workplace, we created this infographic based on the last year’s results.

Are there sustainability practices you’ve picked up specific to your background or culture?
I have always been especially mindful about water use, and I guess it is because I have heard stories about my grandfather in the Philippines. He was the first in his village to construct elaborate water catchment systems from bamboo stalks. The water he collected helped his family sustain the long hot dry seasons and water their farm. Hearing and seeing first-hand the amount of invention and effort it took makes me cherish every drop.

If you know of a person or group on campus that you think we should profile, or if you would like to be profiled, please send us an email at susted[at]ucsc[dot]edu.

5034 lbs Paper Recycled in Annual Disposition Day

At the Sustainability Office, one of our main focuses is student sustainability, but we are invested in the sustainability of all campus users, including staff who work in offices on campus. Think about the office setting; there are many ways to incorporate sustainability into your work life from practicing energy efficiency to reducing waste.

The Records and Information Management (RIM) and Policy Coordination Office is one of the leading green offices on campus. Each year they sponsor a Disposition Day event, offering the secured shredding, and recycling of confidential and restricted paper documents to UC Santa Cruz business offices. This year, 10 offices participated and 5,034 pounds (or 2.5 tons!) of paper were securely recycled.

We sat down with Diane Lallemand, who organized Disposition Day, and had the opportunity to ask her some questions about sustainability.

Diane and Evette -- Records and Information Management Office

What is your position on campus?

I am the Principal Analyst for, Records and Policy Coordination. I oversee the Chancellor's administrative archive. We preserve records of enduring historical value and those that show evidence of the University’s administrative actions. Over the past year we been curating the archive which includes document that date back to the establishment of the UC System. The other side of my job is campus-wide administrative policy. I handle the vetting and approval process of the Executive Vice Chancellor (EVC). This includes all of the campus policies that are not specific to a division or a department or an office, but those which apply widely and broadly to the entire campus. It does not include academic, academic personnel, admissions, or student policies. Its more about the business side of the university.

How does your position relate to sustainability?

Well, we're a pretty small group so the EVC office runs pretty clean and smooth. My part of it is the Records and Information Office. I'm the Campus Records Manager. Part of my job it to promote best practices in records management, while informing and outreaching about UC Records Management Policies. For example, vital records are those that would help us rebuild the University after a disaster. They require special handling and long term preservation. outreach to departments on how to classify, manage and properly dispose those records when it's time -- and our biggest outreach of the year is the Disposition Day event.

How did Disposition Day go this year?

It went really well. There were about 10 offices participating and the numbers afterwards were great. Each year, we sponsor the secured shredding of confidential paper documents. This is a great way let people know about the Records and Information Management office, our resources, and its an opportunity to ask about retention, and other burning records management questions.

Normally, departments would have to make their own arrangements for a confidential shredding service to pick up and dispose their records, but as a part of this sponsored event, it's free for all departments. This is now the 5th year of Disposition Day. We were actually the first UC that started it and now all the UCs, including UCOP, have a Disposition Day.

Is there anything you've learned this year that you want to do differently for next time?

We did get a higher level of participation this year than in the past, which was surprising because in general I thought departments wouldn't need to dispose as much since more are shifting more to electronic records, but there's still lots of paper processes happening on campus. I think there's so much potential to get more people involved. We had 10 departments participate, but I’d like to see even more departments involved. There are a lot of stale archives out there that need attention.

What advice would you give to an office trying to be more "green"?

My advice would be to look and keep looking for efficiencies in consumables and processes. Individuals can consider: do I really need to print that, can I print that two per page, or can I reuse the blank side? One area I would really like to see the campus tackle is the distribution of flyers and junk mail. Offices who haven't already should get in touch with the Green Office Program to find out more ways to incorporate sustainability into their daily business.

Click here to learn more about the RIM office.