| Overall Rating | Gold - expired |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 75.41 |
| Liaison | Marianne Martin |
| Submission Date | March 23, 2018 |
| Executive Letter | Download |
University of Colorado Boulder
EN-5: Outreach Campaign
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
4.00 / 4.00 |
Marianne
Martin Associate Director Environmental Center |
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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
1st Campaign
Water for the West
A brief description of the campaign, including how students and/or employees were engaged:
Water for the West asks CU community members, students and employees included, to pledge to save water for the west. Water for the West was primarily activated at athletics events and through the social media channels of CU Athletics, Ralphie's Green Stampede, and the Environmental Center. Various outreach tactics were used including tabling at games, an on-field/court activity during the game, flyers in the stands and posters in the bathrooms of the basketball facility, promotional videos running during games, distributing branded water bottles, etc. In all marketing and outreach activities, people are asked to pledge to save water by texting "cuwater" to 27126. For every text received, 1000 gallons of water is restored to the CO River. This is made possible by the program sponsor the Wells Fargo Foundation.
A brief description of the measured positive impact(s) of the campaign:
In 1.5 years of activation, Water for the West has received 1388 text pledges. This amounts to 1,388,000 gallons of water restored to the CO River directly from fan engagement. In addition to the engagement portion of the campaign, Water for West sponsor Wells Fargo contributed enough to balance the annual water use of the entire athletic department -- 10 million gallons.
The website URL where information about the campaign is available:
If reporting a second campaign provide:
2nd Campaign
2017 North American Laboratory Freezer Challenge (NALFC)
A brief description of the campaign, including how students and/or employees were engaged (2nd campaign):
CU Boulder participated in the 2017 NALFC this past spring, the first continent-wide freezer challenge competition between academic research institutions, government labs, for-profit companies, and health care institutions. Coordinated by the International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL) and My Green Lab, the goal was to get many laboratories and institutions to participate in the Freezer Challenge to reduce the energy consumption of freezers in North America. Laboratories took actions with their cold storage (refrigerators and freezers) such as throwing away unneeded samples, creating inventories, “chilling-up” their freezer temperatures to -70 C instead of -80 C, performing routine maintenance, retiring unneeded units, among many other possible actions. Labs could pick and choose the elements of cold storage they wanted to address, and between January 15 and May 1 2017, labs took those actions and completed a scoresheet recording their efforts. This scoresheet was submitted by the lab to I2SL and My Green Lab for final scoring.
At CU Boulder, CU Green Labs incentivized labs to participate in the Freezer Challenge by applying for a Sustainable CU Grant so that we could provide rewards for labs that participated in the challenge. Labs that earned more than 3 points on the scoresheet and turned the scoresheet in were eligible to win a gift card to a local restaurant of choice, and winning labs could come to a pizza party reward ceremony. In total, 23 labs from CU Boulder completed the Freezer Challenge. CU Green Labs student assistants helped to publicize the freezer challenge by passing out flyers to laboratories and hanging up posters in lab buildings. In addition, CU Green Labs professional staff sent out periodic reminders to those participating in the freezer challenge giving them hits about “low hanging fruit” they could go after in the freezer challenge scoresheet. Many of those in labs that participated in the NALFC were graduate students, post-docs, and Professional Research Assistants.
A brief description of the measured positive impact(s) of the campaign (2nd campaign):
23 laboratories at CU Boulder participated in the 2017 NALFC. My Green Labs reported to us that the combined efforts of these 23 labs for the Freezer Challenge has saved CU Boulder 160,600 kWh/year. Labs eliminated hundreds of unneeded samples from their freezers, freeing up space so they don’t have to purchase entire new freezers. In addition, the NALFC was a fun engagement tool for our laboratories, and gave many an excuse to focus some extra time and energy on their lab’s cold storage.
The over-arching NALFC website can be found here: http://secure-web.cisco.com/1B6VYpAjDtEF2jSkkW5fstYIsp1eHutuJSDhmkw7camx_kzKuaBIx4_vrjR6UuH63gDTYez0RjzjfZS63KxfArA3Lcd7aNBPrfgYq32rcfpuXSSv4HIgkwgFqqMqO_qJrK3pUTWgC3eGsDU-H4Oo-l0C4A25m15Q8ppjWnIpdN3JYDhsbuRTkLMEwsDzIwAEj3kt_gLtlp4TDTwh6_hNw8T64YinJ2xwhIVZEaSFvk4dMUTBH7H6_oJp69A6TLULmqSjAJGlaGv4UY8lUqTKbF2-XeBO7lXJEa3owOntG-Q0vmAwAg-hiq212957wB-i5GbKQD2HLcmZwaOrQJkPizDldTuEnWOJaFnancE7yilR05QEbMF8_sXEshR5WctTgBWSpttNGt5X9Ptojmx_uRM8nvPA9qAFcfF9aLV6R3BIRSCA_YoOd70SrHkDUxnwZ9skNlyZhsGeW7Xe1dz0sOg/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.freezerchallenge.org%2F
CU Boulder’s page about running the Freezer Challenge on our campus can be found here:
https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/greenlabs/lab-energy-efforts/freezers/freezer-challenge
and here:
https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/greenlabs/freezerchallenge
The website URL where information about the campaign is available (2nd campaign):
Optional Fields
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The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
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Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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