Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 68.71
Liaison Keisha Payson
Submission Date Feb. 28, 2019
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

Bowdoin College
EN-5: Outreach Campaign

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 4.00 / 4.00 Keisha Payson
Sustainability Director
Sustainable Bowdoin
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Has the institution held at least one 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 at least one sustainability-related outreach campaign during the previous three years that was directed at employees and yielded measurable, positive results in advancing sustainability?:
Yes

Name of the campaign:
The student-directed campaign is the annual October Energy Challenge among student residence halls. It has been called "October Energy Challenge;" "Do It In The Dark;" and currently "Flip It Off." Bowdoin has had this energy challenge every October since

A brief description of the campaign, including how students and/or employees were engaged:

Twenty-two of the twenty-seven student residences compete to reduce their energy consumption by the greatest percentage between October 1 and October 31. The seven residences that do no compete are not connected to the Building Dashboard that the majority of campus is, so cannot be accurately compared. September is used for the base-period for all dorms in the competition, and monetary prizes are awarded to residences that reduce the most energy among their Housing type--First Year dorms as a group, Social Houses as a group, and Upper Dorms as a group. Student employees are heavily involved in cheerleading for their dorms, providing advice on how to best reduce a dorms' energy, and working across campus to publicize the campaign. The employee campaign for electronics recycling has been offered annually for the past 7 years, since 2012. Bowdoin has run this annual one day event aimed at
collecting and properly recycling personal electronics from all faculty and staff. The college pays for the event and the associated recycling of e-waste collected. It is advertised for several weeks leading up to the event via the campus faculty-staff digest (daily e-mail advertising events and important information) as well as posters, and through Office EcoReps. Typical participation is roughly 90 employees with participation from dozens of departments across the college.


A brief description of the measured positive impact(s) of the campaign:

Electricity use for each building can be monitored on the Building dashboard through Lucid Technologies, to see which dorms have reduced the most in comparison to each other and in comparison to residents from previous years. Dorms with the most significant energy use reduction win prizes. In recent years, effort has been made to highlight the overall reduction as well, rather than focusing exclusively on the competitive aspects of the month. Overall, energy reduction has ranged from a slight increase of 0.7% to a decrease of 13.7%, and it is important to have students highlight the greater impact that they make together.


The website URL where information about the campaign is available:
Name of the campaign (2nd campaign):
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A brief description of the campaign, including how students and/or employees were engaged (2nd campaign):
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A brief description of the measured positive impact(s) of the campaign (2nd campaign):
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The website URL where information about the campaign is available (2nd campaign):
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A brief description of other sustainability-related outreach campaigns, including measured positive impacts:
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The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
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Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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