Rice University
EN-5: Outreach Campaign

The Green Dorm Initiative (GDI) is a three-week program that encourages Rice undergraduate students (through incentives and prizes) to adopt sustainable lifestyles in their dorm rooms. The event is held and organized by the EcoReps every year to promote sustainable living within each of the eleven residential colleges. The GDI is a three-week event with each week focusing on a certain environmental or sustainable “theme,” namely (1) energy, (2) water, and (3) waste. Each week, an email is sent to participants with a link to a Google Form. Participants are expected to fill out short surveys daily which ask them to log certain aspects of their day that pertain to the week’s theme. For example, during week 1, participants were asked questions pertaining to energy consumption: What is the average thermostat reading in your room, and how many devices or chargers are plugged into your outlets? During week 2, participants were asked questions pertaining to water consumption: How many loads of laundry did you do today, and did eat red meat today? Finally during week 3, participants were asked questions regarding their waste production: How many times did you recycle today, and did you use a reusable water bottle today? In order to incentivize students to contribute to the GDI, prizes are rewarded to those who participate as well as to the college that does the best at the end of each week.

Although there is no explicit data that is measured during the GDI, it is known that during the for 2014 competition, approximately 10 percent of all on-campus students participated in the event by tracking environmental and sustainability related measures, namely their water and energy consumption, as well as their waste production. Thus, the outstanding participation in the Green Dorm Initiative demonstrates that the campaign led to a measurable, positive impact on the campus’ sustainability performance and awareness.

Rice participates in the annual intercollegiate recycling competition, Recyclemania. The competition is a benchmarking tool for colleges and universities to promote waste reduction and increase recycling efforts. During the competition, participating schools report recycling and trash data and are then ranked according to who collects the largest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, the least amount of trash per capita and has the highest recycling rate. In recent years, Rice undergraduate students have teamed with students from other institutions in the Greater Houston area on several friendly competitions. Among other events, Rice hosts a clothing recycling event, and an electronics waste drive during the competition. The Rice Recyclemania competition is not just aimed at students; rather it is inclusive of all faculty and staff as well.

Historically, Rice’s recycling rate has been around 25 percent. In the first week of the Recyclemania competition, Rice recycled 31 percent of all its trash, thereby demonstrating that the campaign led to a measurable, positive impact on its sustainability performance.

Two other notable outreach campaigns at Rice are its (1) bike safety campaign aimed at students, faculty and staff, and (2) FREE-cycling event which is primarily intended for faculty and staff members. (1) Bike Safety campaign: In recent years, Rice has become very focused on ensuring the safety and responsibility of the biking community, both on and off-campus. Specifically in 2009, Rice had a committee dedicated to bicycle safety that wrote and compiled a document offering recommendations to improve bicycle and pedestrian safety on campus. Since then, Rice has implemented a webpage dedicated to “Bikes at Rice” that offers information on riding responsibly, following biking safety rules, registering bicycles with the Rice University Police Department (RUPD), respecting pedestrians, and following protocol for stolen bicycles. The University also created a video to encourage students to ride responsibly. The video discusses specific safety measures that should be taken by cyclists on campus, as well as information on how to register a bike with RUPD. In general, bike safety remains a prominent concern at the University. A recent 2014 article was published in the Rice University News & Media reminding students of the importance of heightened awareness and vigilance while riding both on and off Rice’s campus. (2) FREE-cycling: Rice’s annual FREE-cycling event is a popular and useful campaign encouraging faculty and staff to donate or swap unneeded or unused office supplies. Offices and departments across campus can donate items such as binders, calculators, envelopes, file folders, paper products, staplers and toner. During the event, bins are also available for dead batteries, dead cellphones, empty toner and ink cartridges, bubble wrap, packing peanuts and electronics.

Bikes at Rice websited: http://www.rice.edu/bikesatrice/index.shtml Article about biking: http://news.rice.edu/2014/02/24/cyclists-pedestrians-reminded-to-be-cautious-and-courteous/ Bike safety committee document: http://www.rice.edu/bikesatrice/documents/Bicycle%20Safety%20Committee_report_foot_markBW.pdf FREE-cycling: http://news.rice.edu/2013/08/09/annual-free-cycling-office-supply-swap-set-for-aug-27/