Slippery Rock University
IN-1: Innovation 1

The Energy Conservation Campaign "Small steps. Big payoff." and corresponding online Energy Pledge was launched by the Energy Conservation Committee in the Fall of 2011 to target energy-saving behavior modifications. The campaign seeks to make individuals (students, faculty, and staff) aware of how their individual actions contribute to the university's energy consumption and emissions. The campaign targets specific behaviors that individuals can adopt to lower their personal energy use (i.e. shorter showers, turn out lights, print double-sided, take the stairs, unplug, power down, etc...). T-shirts and posters depicted the various Pledge actions were developed by a faculty member and students in the Communications department. The online Energy Pledge asks students, faculty and staff to select three behaviors they are willing to adopt to help reduce the university's energy consumption. Freshmen were specifically targeted during the Week of Welcome by energy ambassadors. Rubber bracelets were handed out to pledge-takers and prizes were awarded throughout the year to random people seen wearing the bracelet. Four textbook stipends were also awarded as grand prizes to participating students. Over eleven-hundred people on the SRU campus took the pledge in its first semester.