Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 53.77
Liaison Stephen Ellis
Submission Date Oct. 7, 2021

STARS v2.2

Boston University
EN-5: Outreach Campaign

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 4.00 / 4.00 Lisa Tornatore
Sustainability Director
BU Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Has the institution held a sustainability-related outreach campaign during the previous three years that was directed at students and yielded measurable, positive results in advancing sustainability?:
Yes

Has the institution held a sustainability-related outreach campaign during the previous three years that was directed at employees and yielded measurable, positive results in advancing sustainability?:
Yes

1st campaign 

Name of the campaign:
sustainability@BU App

A brief description of the campaign:
Boston University partnered with JouleBug to develop its own branded sustainability mobile application. The app is a way to log your sustainable habits, earn points for what you do, compete in challenges, and share what you're doing with others like you would with social media. Using the app as a platform, we have engaged community members in an average of 6 distinct challenges for which sustainable actions are incentivized through points, prizes, and a leaderboard. Challenges included the Sustainability Festival Challenge where participants would get a mug/water bottle if they downloaded the app, the Dorm Energy Challenge, and the Reusables Week Challenge co-sponsored by BU Dining Services and the undergraduate chapter of Net Impact.

http://www.bu.edu/sustainability/howto/track-your-actions-app/

A brief description of the measured positive impact(s) of the campaign:
Since August 2016 when the app launched, we have engaged over 6,000 participants in sustainable actions.

Through this effort, it is estimated that we have avoided 2.4 million lbs of carbon dioxide emissions, saved 4.8 million gallons of water, and diverted 163,000 lbs of waste.

if reporting an additional campaign, provide:

2nd campaign

Name of the campaign (2nd campaign):
Green Office Certification Program

A brief description of the campaign (2nd campaign):
In March 2011, Boston University launched its Green Office Certification program. Modeled from the US Green Building Council’s LEED green building rating program, BU’s system rates individual offices based on daily practices involving energy conservation, waste reduction, recycling, and communications and activities. Individuals can achieve a Certified, Silver, or Gold rating depending on how many points are earned. Once certified, participants receive a badge that can be displayed on their office name plaques. The Green Office Certification program is a great way for us to teach people about the small actions they can take within their office to be more sustainable. The Green Office Certification program was implemented in order to raise awareness, educate, and provide measurable guidelines for greening the office environment.

https://www.bu.edu/sustainability/campus-resources/green-office/

A brief description of the measured positive impact(s) of the campaign (2nd campaign):
Since 2011, we've directly engaged over 1700 individuals, and 7 departments in certifications.

Optional Fields

A brief description of other sustainability-related outreach campaigns:
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Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
This represents FY2019 BU Metrics.

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.