Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 71.74
Liaison Carrie Metzgar
Submission Date March 5, 2021

STARS v2.2

University of California, San Diego
EN-5: Outreach Campaign

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 4.00 / 4.00 Jennifer Bowser
Sustainability Program Coordinator
Sustainability
"---" 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

Name of the campaign:
A Month-Long Celebration of Earth Day at UC San Diego

A brief description of the campaign:

Every April UC San Diego organizes a celebration of Earth Month to engage and educate students, staff and faculty on sustainability. Events include a sustainability fair with tables of student organizations, departments, and local vendors sharing information, games and fun ways to be more sustainable in their homes, residence halls, offices and departments; film showings; seminars; DIY events; beach cleanups; luncheons; and the annual UCSD Sustainability Awards honoring individuals, (students, faculty and staff) vendors, offices/departments, and those certified in UCSD's Green Office and Green Labs programs that year. Students, faculty and staff are emailed asking them to nominate their peers for an award. Student organizations are invited to host events to engage their peers on important environmental issues throughout the month. Faculty are asked to share the month-long schedule of events with their classes and to offer extra credit for students attending events.Events are marketed to students through listservs, college e-newsletters, bulletins, social media, student organizations and a campus-wide events calendar.


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

Attendance at events (examples: Annual Sustainability Fair 400+, Green Talks 165, Awards Ceremony 150), social media like's/follows/shares (examples: Annual Sustainability Fair 2019 318 responded, Green Talks 2018 160 responded) and newsletter signups (April 2019 145).


Name of the campaign (2nd campaign):
Cool Campus Challenge

A brief description of the campaign (2nd campaign):

In April 2019, all UC faculty, staff and students were invited to participate in the Cool Campus Challenge — a friendly and fun 4-week competition aimed at reducing UC’s carbon footprint and creating a culture of sustainability across campuses.

The Cool Campus Challenge (CCC) engaged nearly 202,000 staff, students and faculty at the University of California (UC) in an online pledge campaign aimed at reducing UC’s carbon footprint and creating a culture of sustainability across campuses. The program was funded by UC’s Carbon Neutrality Initiative, which calls for the UC system to be carbon neutral from building energy use and fleet operations by 2025. For the month of April (2019), all UC faculty, staff, and students were invited to learn more about their carbon footprints on campus and at home and then pledge to complete actions that prevent greenhouse gas emissions. Participants also earned points for related actions such as uploading stories and photos about pledges they took, nominating a campus colleague as a climate hero, attending campus sustainability events, and inviting friends to participate in the challenge. The program was supported by a gamified website, twice-weekly emails, and outreach efforts and events on campuses.

UC San Diego ran a competition between its six colleges, encouraging students to accumulate points in prize-eligible tiers; faculty were invited to participate and offer extra credit to their classes. The student, faculty, staff, team and college with the most points was honored at the campus's annual Sustainability Awards Ceremony.

The UC anticipates repeating the Challenge every 3 years.


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

Cool Campus Challenge participants took more than 190,000 actions resulting in over 21,650,000 pounds of carbon dioxide saved.


A brief description of other sustainability-related outreach campaigns:
---

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.