Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 70.76
Liaison Richard Johnson
Submission Date Oct. 13, 2017
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

Rice University
EN-5: Outreach Campaign

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 4.00 / 4.00
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Has the institution held at least one 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 at least one sustainability-related outreach campaign during the previous three years that was directed at employees and yielded measurable, positive results in advancing sustainability?:
Yes

Name of the campaign:
The Green Dorm Initiative

A brief description of the campaign, including how students and/or employees were engaged:

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) water and energy, (2) wellness, 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. They also have a week-long challenge to undergo. For example, during week 1, daily topics included natural lighting, water use, vampire power, carbon footprint, and biking/walking. The week-long challenge encouraged participants to shower under four minutes today. During week 2, daily topics included unsafe chemicals in products, local food and the Rice Farmer's Market, getting outside, building community, and vegetarianism. The week-long challenge encouraged participants to cut back on their red meat consumption. During week 3, daily topics included food waste, recycling, not using disposable water bottles, electronic waste, and one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. The week-long challenge encouraged participants to not send anything to the landfill.
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.


A brief description of the measured positive impact(s) of the campaign:

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. Participation has grown since then. 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.


The website URL where information about the campaign is available:
Name of the campaign (2nd campaign):
FREE-Cycling

A brief description of the campaign, including how students and/or employees were engaged (2nd campaign):

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. The event occurs on the first or second day of the fall semester, and is open to students, faculty, and staff. 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. Staff volunteer to run the event, and all of the items are free.
Broken equipment is kept separate, so that an environmental health and safety company can come pick up the equipment and recycle it.


A brief description of the measured positive impact(s) of the campaign (2nd campaign):

The campaign was started in 2009, and it continues to grow every year. It is a chance for departments to get rid of what they do not need and pick up what they do. This saves departments money and reduces trash. Although there are no concrete numbers of items "free-cycled", a photograph of some of the items have been attached in the Optional Fields section.


The website URL where information about the campaign is available (2nd campaign):
A brief description of other sustainability-related outreach campaigns, including measured positive impacts:

Another notable outreach campaigns at Rice are its bike safety campaign aimed at students, faculty and staff. 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.


The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
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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.