Read Green is the University's electronic bulk-mail delivery service for faculty and staff. When a University department needs to communicate a mailing to a defined group — all faculty and staff, a specific campus, a specific department or employee classification — Read Green delivers that mailing as an email message to recipients' Pitt Email (Outlook) inboxes instead of printing and physically distributing paper copies. Faculty and staff are subscribed by default. The service is operated by University Mailing Services and is one of two enterprise-supported paths for mass email at Pitt — see How Read Green Fits with Other Mass-Email Options below for when to use Read Green versus Campaign Monitor.
How Read Green Works
If you are a Pitt faculty or staff member, you are subscribed to Read Green automatically. When a department sends a Read Green mailing to a group that includes you, the message arrives in your Pitt Email (Outlook) inbox.
- Short, text-only mailings are delivered with their full content in the body of the email message.
- Mailings with graphics or special formatting are delivered as a short email containing a link to a PDF version of the mailing. The PDF is hosted by the University rather than attached, so it does not consume your mailbox storage.
You will still receive some paper mail.
Read Green covers University bulk mailings — the kind that previously would have gone out as printed mass mail. Interoffice mail and mail addressed to you personally by the U.S. Postal Service still arrive on paper. A University unit may also specify that a particular bulk mailing must be delivered as paper rather than via Read Green.
Why Read Green Matters
Read Green is part of the University's commitment to reducing paper consumption and waste. University bulk mailings historically accounted for a substantial portion of institutional paper use — every recipient required paper stock, ink, printing equipment, sorting and physical distribution effort, and eventual disposal or recycling. Replacing those mailings with electronic delivery, when feasible, eliminates that entire chain on a per-piece basis.
The broader trend is real and measurable. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, paper and paperboard remain the largest single component of U.S. municipal solid waste — accounting for roughly 23 percent of total generation as of 2018, the most recent year for which EPA published detailed figures. Total U.S. paper waste has declined meaningfully since 2000 (from 87.7 million tons to 67.4 million tons), and EPA attributes part of that decline to institutions and businesses shifting routine communications from paper to electronic delivery. Read Green is the University's contribution to that shift.
Opt In or Opt Out
If you prefer to receive paper bulk mailings instead of Read Green email versions, you can unsubscribe at any time:
- Open Manage My Account via myPitt.
- Select Email & Messaging.
- Choose My Subscriptions from the drop-down.
- Adjust your Read Green preference.
- Select Update Subscriptions to save.
The same procedure re-subscribes you if you change your mind later.
For Departments — Sending a Read Green Mailing
Departments and University units can use Read Green to deliver a mailing to all faculty and staff or to a subset defined by campus, department, employee classification, or similar criteria.
To request a Read Green mailing, contact University Mailing Services:
University Mailing Services will work with you on audience selection, content formatting, scheduling, and any associated PDF hosting.
How Read Green Fits with Other Mass-Email Options
Pitt supports two enterprise paths for mass email, and the choice between them depends on use case rather than audience:
- Read Green specializes in routine institutional bulk mail to faculty and staff. It uses Pitt's HR directory data to deliver to predefined audiences — no list management required — and is the simplest path when your mailing fits its audience model and you don't need campaign features.
- Campaign Monitor is Pitt's enterprise broadcast platform and supports any audience: internal Pitt recipients, external audiences (alumni, donors, prospective students, event registrants, external partners), or mixed lists. It includes campaign-management features that Read Green doesn't provide — templates, segmentation, scheduled sends, click tracking, analytics, A/B testing — and is the right choice when your campaign needs them.
For a routine faculty/staff bulk mailing that fits Read Green's predefined audience model, Read Green is the simplest and lowest-overhead path. For campaigns that need flexibility, external recipients, or richer features, use Campaign Monitor — see the Campaign Monitor service page. For the full decision tree, including specialized platforms reserved for system integrations, and the underlying email-authentication requirements, see Pitt's DMARC Email Validation.
About Read Green's deliverability for its use case.
Read Green mail originates inside Pitt's Microsoft 365 tenant and isn't routed through external sending infrastructure, so it bypasses the sender-reputation scoring that recipient spam filters apply to bulk mail from third-party platforms. For routine institutional bulk mail to faculty and staff — Read Green's purpose-built use case — this is a meaningful operational advantage. For campaigns that need Campaign Monitor's flexibility or features, that external-routing tradeoff is part of why Pitt Digital supports Campaign Monitor specifically and monitors its sending reputation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Select a question to expand the answer.
Does Read Green mean I won't receive any paper-based mail at all?
No. Read Green covers University bulk mailings — mass communications that would previously have gone out as printed mass mail. Interoffice mail and mail sent to you personally through the U.S. Postal Service still arrive on paper. A University unit may also specify that a particular bulk mailing must be delivered on paper rather than via Read Green.
Are all Read Green messages delivered to all faculty and staff?
No. Each Read Green mailing is delivered to the audience the sending department specifies — which may be all faculty and staff, a specific campus, a specific department, a specific employee classification, or another defined subset. You only receive mailings whose audience includes you.
Is Read Green available to students?
Read Green is currently a faculty-and-staff service. Departments needing to communicate with student audiences should work with the appropriate channel for the message type — academic communications through PeopleSoft and Canvas, broader campus communications through University Communications and Marketing, and external-facing campaigns through Campaign Monitor or another registered broadcast platform.
Where are Read Green messages delivered?
Read Green messages are delivered to your official University email address (username@pitt.edu) and appear in your Pitt Email (Outlook) inbox alongside the rest of your Pitt mail. Pitt Digital recommends reading Pitt Email in Outlook rather than auto-forwarding it to a personal account — Read Green messages included. See Pitt Email and Calendar (Outlook) for the reasons.
Key Contacts
University Mailing Services 412-624-6500
Sending a Read Green mailing, audience selection, content formatting (Mon–Fri 7:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.) |
Technology Help Desk 412-624-HELP (4357)
Subscription and delivery issues with the Pitt Email account itself |