Colgate University
EN-5: Outreach Campaign

Colgate's Office of Sustainability provides education on waste minimization and recycling to campus community members throughout the year. The campaign focuses on how students and staff can minimize landfill waste and reduce, reuse, recycle, and compost. With programs such as RecycleMania, Green Living and Green Office and through activities planned and implemented by an on-campus composting program led by the student Compost Club, the office has improved behaviors across the campus. Colgate's recycling guide is available at: http://www.colgate.edu/docs/d_distinctly-colgate_sustainability_climate-action-planning_waste-minimization-and-recycling/2013-14-colgate-recycling-guide---12-11-12.pdf?sfvrsn=0 Colgate also provides an opportunity for students and staff to track their energy conservation efforts through Building Dashboard (http://buildingdashboard.net/colgate/). This tool tracks energy and water usage in student residence halls. The publicly accessible dashboard features up-to-the-minute statistics.

Since 2008, we have reduced our landfill waste by over 175 tons (or 19%) while our recycling rate has improved from 16% in 2010 to 24% in 2013. The 2012-2013 year represented the 6th year in a row where our per capita waste declined (56 lbs per person [2008] to 42 lbs per person [2012]). This progress comes as a result of improved recycling infrastructure including recycling bins in each student room and an electronic waste (e-waste) recycling program with 16 stations located throughout campus.

Colgate's Office of Sustainability provides education and social-marketing strategies to reduce electricity consumption on campus. We participate in national competitions such as Campus Conservation Nationals (CCN) and Earth Hour and Colgate-specific residential competitions such as the Broad Street Challenge. The competitions serve as a fun and competitive way to encourage energy conservation and sustainable behavior. We use peer-to-peer education, prompts on light switches, real-time energy use data, and tabling events to reduce wasted energy.

Since 2009, we have reduced our electricity consumption on campus by over 1.3 million kilowatt-hours. This is attributed to better systems management, lighting upgrades, more efficient data centers, and all-around more sustainable behavior (e.g., people turning lights off in empty rooms, powering down computers overnight, and unplugging coffee pots and other electronic devices).