Stanford University
EN-5: Outreach Campaign

RecycleMania is a national 8-week intercollegiate competition and benchmarking tool for higher education recycling programs. Each year during RecycleMania, Stanford reports recycling and trash tonnage and attempts to surpass other schools in categories such as total tons recycled, waste diversion rate, waste minimization, and per capita recycling. All members of the campus community are encouraged to participate and evaluate their own waste and recycling habits during this annual competition through activities and trainings offered by Stanford's Office of Sustainability and Peninsula Sanitary Services, Inc (PSSI)/Stanford Recycling Center. For instance, Stanford offers trainings in conjunction with this campaign entitled "Best Practices in Waste Reduction." These trainings are eligible for incentives through Stanford's BeWell program. Stanford also offers free tours of its on-site recycling center and off-site composting facility to the campus community. In 2015, Stanford released a promotional music video in conjunction with the Recyclemania campaign entitled "All About No Waste" The video was produced by Stanford's Office of Sustainability and features Stanford students, faculty, and staff performing an adapted version of a popular song. During the competition, the Office of Sustainability also partners with the Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation (DAPER) to host two sustainability game day challenges, where it engages students, staff and fans to recycle and compost. The diversion rate at these games increased to 28% in 2016 from 5% in 2015 due to increased recycling and composting availability and student volunteers helping fans sort waste.

Below are Stanford's final 2016 results in each of the Recyclemania categories: Gorilla: 2 out of 276 Corrugated Cardboard: 5 out of 97 Food Service Organics: 6 out of 140 Bottles and Cans: 6 out of 81 Paper: 7 out of 91 Per Capita Recycling: 16 out of 269 Grand Champion: 78 out of 207 Waste Minimization: 111 out of 114 Throughout the campaign, Stanford also measures its impact on the campus community by asking people to pledge to reduce waste via the Sustainable Stanford website, with over 1,300 pledges received during the 2015 campaign, and the visibility of the campaign continues to increase year after year. Both regularly scheduled sessions of the waste training reached maximum capacity, and OOS and PSSI offered several sessions upon request for specific schools and departments on campus, with attendance ranging from 20-50 people per session. In total, OOS trained over 100 employees during its RecycleMania waste trainings.

The annual Cardinal Green Buildings campaign is one of the longest-standing Cardinal Green resource conservation campaigns. Stanford operates and maintains hundreds of campus buildings. While advanced systems ensure these buildings operate efficiently, a critical tool in helping further reduce Stanford’s energy use is the collective action of campus building occupants. For years, Stanford’s building managers have helped the university realize significant energy savings through the success of programs like the annual Winter Closure and the Cardinal Green Office Program. In partnership with Zone Management and Facilities Energy Management, these efforts were joined under the Cardinal Green Buildings campaign in order to call attention to the great work building leads are doing and to further engage the campus community in sustainability. In 2015, two additional engagement opportunities were included beyond the shutdown of building heating and ventilation systems and custodial services over winter break and individual participation from students, staff and faculty to ensure that all appliances and electronics are unplugged during the building curtailment. A plug load inventory conducted in 2014-15 revealed a number of space heaters on campus, and through the Cardinal Green Buildings campaign, owners of those devices were invited to swap them in for a Sustainable Stanford fleece. Stanford calculated that this program offers approximately a one year return on investment. Additionally, lab workers were challenged to chill up their ultra-low temperature freezers from -80 to -70. These targeted programs were intended to engage specific audiences in the campaign.

The 2015 Cardinal Green Buildings campaign proved to be another success, with 188 buildings participating (representing more than 75% of academic buildings). Of participating buildings, seven increased their participation level either from full exemption to partial participation or partial to full participation. The resulting savings totaled $340,000 in avoided energy costs - which represents 1.4 million kilowatt-hours of electricity or 806 million metric tons of CO2 emissions avoided. Additional savings include 1,570 million BTU of thermal energy saved (combination of hot water and process steam savings) and 203,000 ton-hours of chilled water savings. The program was enhanced by pledges from more than 1,300 individuals who committed to reducing their personal plug loads and turning off all equipment before the shutdown. For the inaugural Space Heater Swap, 50 people pledged to turn in their space heater for a Sustainable Stanford fleece. Finally, participants in the Chill Up campaign will save 4,000 kWh of electricity annually.

Office of Sustainability offers a series of campaigns aimed at conserving resources on campus as part of its Cardinal Green program. Each campaign offers the opportunity for students, staff and faculty to directly contribute to sustainability efforts, focused seasonally around energy, water, and waste. The energy and waste campaigns are discussed above, and the 2016 water campaign was held in April and encouraged students to "take the shorter shower challenge." Year-long programs such as the Cardinal Green Labs, Cardinal Green Events, and Cardinal Green Office Program establish a community of sustainability champions who can track and measure results on an ongoing basis. Additionally, in May 2015, Stanford's Procurement Department led a campaign called Green Tuesdays aimed at consolidating purchases to reduce the total number of deliveries to campus. As a result of this campaign, Stanford saw a reduction of approximately 10 deliveries per weekday.