University of Pennsylvania
EN-5: Outreach Campaign

In the Fall of 2020, Penn hosted its first Climate Week, September 21-25, to learn how the climate emergency intersects with the pressing issues of today and how to take action. This community-wide initiative presented 47 events, organized by 28 separate Penn organizations, on topics from climate science to climate storytelling, with a special emphasis on racial justice and local action. Penn Sustainability intentionally aligned its annual educational campaign, ReThink Your Footprint, with Climate Week in order to highlight events and resources on waste minimization and broadly encourage members of the Penn community to consider their environmental footprints and take concrete action to reduce them.

https://sustainability.upenn.edu/news/penn%E2%80%99s-first-climate-week-virtual-success

https://climateweek.provost.upenn.edu

Here are a few of the metrics-based impacts of the campaign:

- An interactive social media campaign was held, encouraging members of the Penn community, no matter their geographic location, to take action to reduce their environmental footprint and engage with local organizations. Each day of the week, Penn Sustainability posted on its 3 social media platforms related to a specific type of footprint (travel, waste, purchasing, food, energy, and litter).

- Since Penn Sustainability could not hold collection events on campus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we asked students, staff, and faculty to self-report specialty items that they recycled or donated during the week using a Qualtrics survey.
• Over 333 items were recycled or donated during the week, including: 98 plastic bags, 57 pieces of clothing, and 14 books. Of note, the Division of Public Safety alone recycled 50 hard drives, 43 phones, and 1,386 pounds of miscellaneous electronic waste.

- There were 45 unique events for Climate Week, organized by 28 separate Penn organizations, including 7 schools, and involving 31 NGOs and community institutions.

- There were close to 3,000 individual participations.

- 6,673 people viewed the 1.5 Minute Climate Lectures, reconfirming the appeal of the short format lecture as a way to express information and urgency about the climate emergency.

Penn's Executive Vice President (EVP) Craig Carnaroli annually holds an internal Philadelphia Eagles Fridays campaign. The 2019-2020 Academic Year Eagles Fridays campaign looked a little different with the incorporation of green tips in support of Penn’s sustainability goals. The collaborative initiative, Eagles Green Fridays, allowed staff members in the EVP division to wear green or Eagles gear on Fridays while asking them to participate in a Twitter engagement campaign to share photos of sustainable practices.

Each week that the Philadelphia Eagles football team had a game, the EVP Office would send out a sustainability tip to all 2000+ staff within the division, encouraging them to get involved with sustainability on campus and share photos of their sustainable activities and operations via Twitter.

During the Eagles Green Fridays campaign, Penn Sustainability also launched a Sustainability 101 training available to all faculty and staff in the University's online KnowledgeLink training system. This module is assignable to all University faculty and staff and helps users learn about sustainability on campus. The module was promoted by the EVP division during Eagles Green Fridays, with those who completed the module being entered into a raffle to get an exclusive tour of Lincoln Financial Field, home to the Philadelphia Eagles.

Since the module's release, 355 faculty and staff have taken the training, equivalent to over 15% of the EVP division.

30x30 Challenge:
The 30x30 Challenge is an effort to encourage the Penn community to get outside, learn about local ecology, and appreciate the beauty of nature. Join Penn's 30x30 Challenge and challenge yourself to spend at least 30 minutes outdoors in nature each day for all 30 days of April. The Challenge runs from April 1 - 30 annually. The most recent 30x30 Challenge was converted to a virtual format during the COVID-19 pandemic and had over 160 participants.

Power Down + Energy Week:
Power Down empowers members of the Penn community to reduce their energy consumption and deepen their understanding of energy issues. During the campaign, Penn Sustainability and other campus partners join together for educational events and programs about energy consumption, reduction, and innovation.The most recent Power Down campaign aligned with the first annual Energy Week@Penn, a concentrated week of energy programming across the disciplines of business, communications, design, law, engineering, and science. Energy Week@Penn was hosted by the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and the Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology.

The University of Pennsylvania is a major research institution, with over 3,000 degrees granted annually from twelve professional and academic schools at the Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctorate levels. Penn is committed to reducing emissions and energy use, as stated in the 2019 "Climate and Sustainability Action Plan 3.0." This submission documents Penn's efforts during the FY20 year and compares them to the FY09 baseline year which corresponds with the University's "Climate and Sustainability Action Plan 3.0." The submission relies on information related to the main, academic, West Philadelphia campus, but to more fully document efforts across the Penn system, information related to the Morris Arboretum and New Bolton Center has also been referenced and noted as outside the boundary in descriptions. The information is used to enrich examples of University efforts and is not intended to be the primary justification for credits. The responses for each of the questions and sub-questions are drawn from University materials, both internal and public documents. Each section notes the website where the information can be found.