| Overall Rating | Gold |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 68.45 |
| Liaison | Keisha Payson |
| Submission Date | May 8, 2024 |
Bowdoin College
EN-5: Outreach Campaign
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
4.00 / 4.00 |
Keisha
Payson Sustainability Director Sustainable Bowdoin |
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?:
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?:
1st campaign
A brief description of the campaign:
Students compete to reduce their energy consumption by the greatest percentage between October 1 and October 31. All of the first-year residence halls, sophomore College Houses, and six upper dorms compete among their housing type—first year residence halls as a group, College Houses as a group, and upper dorms as a group—to reduce the most energy used between dorms. September is used for the base period for all dorms in the competition, and monetary prizes are awarded to residences that reduce the largest percentage compared with their base usage. Student employees are heavily involved in promoting the competition for their dorms, providing advice on how to best reduce a dorm's energy and working across campus to publicize the campaign. The Energy Eco Rep team spearheads the competition and provides additional outreach and events throughout the month, including baking solar oven cookies while tabling to share info about the competition, guiding walks to the nearby solar array, and organizing one-hour lights out events that encourage students to turn out the lights/unplug for an hour while making s’mores together at the Bowdoin Outing Club.
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 Atrius Building Insights to see which dorms have reduced the most in comparison to each other in real time. 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. Over half of the participating buildings reduced their energy during the competition. The overall winner in the October 2023 competition reduced their energy usage by 20.6 percent and the total energy reduced across campus was 2.85 percent.
if reporting an additional campaign, provide:
2nd campaign
A brief description of the campaign (2nd campaign):
The employee campaign for electronics recycling has been offered annually 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 in key locations. Typical participation is roughly ninety employees with participation from dozens of departments across the college.
A brief description of the measured positive impact(s) of the campaign (2nd campaign):
In the Spring 2023 e-waste event, over ninety people participated from more than 40 departments across campus, collecting over 3,000 personal electronic items for proper recycling.
Optional Fields
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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.