Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 80.07
Liaison Lindsey Lyons
Submission Date March 5, 2021

STARS v2.2

Dickinson College
EN-5: Outreach Campaign

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 4.00 / 4.00 Lindsey Lyons
Assistant Director
Center for Sustainability Education
"---" 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:
EcoChallenge 2020

A brief description of the campaign:
Dickinson's Center for Sustainability Education (CSE) hosted an ONLINE sustainability-focused behavior change challenge April 1-21, 2020, which pitted Dickinson students/faculty/staff against each other in a behavior change challenge. Dickinson was also able to compete against 15 others colleges and universities in a collective inter-school competition. EcoChallenge is a fun and social way to take measurable action on the issues you care about. With a few weeks of commitment, learning and action can add up to a lifetime of positive change for you, Dickinson, and the planet!

We like this platform as it’s holistic, real-time, FREE, and allows participants to select the commitments they want to work on. EcoChallenge is 100% online, and offers unique, customizable opportunities for engagement during this difficult time of social distancing. With our campus closed for COVID-19, we were still able to use this platform for engagement. Additionally, since many students and employees were at home, we invited anyone that wanted to join our team to do so. Students invited parents, siblings and friends to join them. Faculty and staff were encouraged to get their kids involved.

This was an opportunity for Dickinson students, faculty, staff, alumni and families to make individual commitments that contribute to Climate Change Needs Behavior Change in the year of Carbon Neutrality 2020. EcoChallenge takes a holistic approach to behavior change, demonstrating that behaviors in all aspects of your life impact your carbon footprint. We are in the process of planning the 2021 team, and hope to continue this sustainability tradition at Dickinson both online and in person!

https://www.dickinson.edu/info/20052/sustainability/3971/campus_ecochallenge_2020

A brief description of the measured positive impact(s) of the campaign:
More than 200 Dickinsonians joined in on EcoChallenge 2020, helping to cut more than 602 pounds of CO2 emissions. From April 1-21, 2020, students, faculty and staff who participated online in the competition-based higher-education sustainability program completed a multitude of waste, food and transportation challenges that resulted in the following outcomes for the Dickinson team:

631 meatless or vegan meal consumed
10,910 minutes of exercise
157 plastic containers not sent to the landfill
3502 gallons of water saved

These efforts translated into points in which allowed for competition between 12 different institutions of higher education and much greater results through the entire comeptition.

“The EcoChallenge fosters an opportunity for students on campus to challenge themselves to improve their personal behavior and understand the impact that an individual can have on sustainability," says Robin Okunowo ’21 (undeclared), who participated in this year's challenge. "The challenge is only two weeks, but the impact on the environment lasts a lifetime.”

You can see all results online here:
https://campus2020.ecochallenge.org/

if reporting an additional campaign, provide:

2nd campaign

Name of the campaign (2nd campaign):
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A brief description of the campaign (2nd campaign):
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A brief description of the measured positive impact(s) of the campaign (2nd campaign):
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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:
Dickinson is working to reduce its energy consumption and to transition away from fossil energy sources to renewable sources that are less harmful to the environment, the climate, and human health. We are committed to reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), which come overwhelmingly from our energy consumption. We reached our target to be a carbon neutral institution by reducing GHG emissions 25% from our 2008 level in 2020, and offset the other 75%. The EcoChallenge campaign complimented efforts at the institutional level and allowed Dickinson students, faculty and staff a chance to assess their own behaviors and play a role in the change and education.

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.