Oberlin College
EN-5: Outreach Campaign

Ecolympics is a three-week water and electricity reduction competition that occurs in conjunction with Campus Conservation Nationals, between campuses and residence halls We utilize our Campus Resource Monitoring System to provide students with real-time feedback on their resource use and measure consumption throughout the competition. In addition to the conservation piece, there is a series of events. In 2014, there were appropriately 35 events in the three weeks of the competition! Events range from film screenings to guest lecturers to community service days.

The winners of Oberlin’s 2013 Ecolympics are: Dorm electricity winner: Keep Co-op with a 57.7% reduction. Dorm water winner: Old Barrows with a 45.8% reduction. Kitchen co-op electricity winner: Kosher Halal Co-Op with a 14.3% reduction. Dorm participation winner: Old Barrows Co-op Honorable mention: For the first time we are giving an honorable mention award. This award goes to Fairchild for coming in second in dorm water reduction and for high participation. In 2013 Oberlin joined the ranks of around 200 institutions nationwide in saving 2,114,844 kWh of electricity and around $250,000 – in addition to 1,681,241 gallons of water. This was the biggest reduction in CCN history thus far.

The recently created (2015) Green Office Program (GOPro) was designed to involve offices in the campus-wide effort to reduce energy consumption and move towards carbon neutrality. The impetus for the creation of the Green Office Program is twofold: 1) the acknowledgement that, unlike students, faculty and staff on campus don’t have clear avenues or resources for getting involved with campus sustainability, and 2) because most faculty and staff work on campus 40 hours a week, year-round, and make decisions that have bearing on campus’ footprint, it is critical to involve offices in sustainability efforts. The program aims to become a new channel to engage faculty and staff in conservation and sustainability activities. It is also an opportunity for offices to take ownership of their role in Oberlin’s commitment to sustainability and be recognized for their efforts. Our goal is to create a Green Office Program at Oberlin College that: 1) encourages and challenges college faculty and staff offices and departments to engage in sustainability behaviors, 2) engages faculty and staff in sustainability issues, 3) provides networking opportunities to interested faculty/staff, while also breaking down silos to allow collaboration across campus, 4) provides structure for engagement, but also allows for new ideas to emerge from within units, 5) provide sustainability-related professional development opportunities, and 6) recognize offices for their work on sustainability.

At this point, changes made in offices will be self-reporting and impact will be qualitative. As of fall 2016, there are three offices participating in the pilot of the Green Office Program. OES staff have interviewed and surveyed the liaisons to understand how the program is being received in their offices, how the program can be more effective, and how OES can support the offices. The Environmental Dashboard aims to expand metering into more administrative and academic buildings within the next few years. Once that occurs the results will be more measurable in terms of energy data. Once the Green Office Program expands and the OES hosts summits and events to engage faculty and staff we will have data of number of attendees and people actively engaged.

The From Coal to Carbon Neutrality (FC2CN) campus-wide dialog series was aimed at educating and engaging our campus in Oberlin's carbon neutrality goals. This is the program we are counting towards this credit. There were three events in the series as well as an educational website being compiled and launched (http://new.oberlin.edu/office/environmental-sustainability/carbon-neutrality/). Events were attended by both students and employees. Basic event descriptions can be found here: https://oncampus.oberlin.edu/source/articles/2012/11/07/coal-carbon-neutrality-campus-conversation (please note that event #3 did not take place as other campus events took precedent at that time. These events were attended heavily by students, as well as faculty and staff, including plant operators to presidential office staff. Measurable positive impacts include the hundreds of ideas that were generated and documented during the FC2CN workshop, the cross-constituency working groups that were formed, and the positive reviews given to the organizers that the workshop was a success.

The From Coal to Carbon Neutrality website compile carbon neutrality efforts into a central location and will be built upon with more information, background, and efforts as requested.