residence hall energy challenges
Would appreciate suggestions for best practices re: promotion when holding residence hall energy challenges. We are interested in learning how you promoted the challenge to campus residents, specifically, outreach activities and conservation suggestions. What was most successful?
Getting people to participate in big numbers is easy when you understand how to identify and empower the "eco-enthusiasts" that can be found in every dorm, in every classroom and on every campus. They are literally just waiting there for you to give them an excuse, an opportunity and a context within which to go wild advocating environmental responsibility to everyone around them. It's what they want to do, but peer pressure or social norms hold them back. When I was at Duke, we figured out how to find and enable those eco-enthusiasts. It made all the difference in the world. One of the segments on the video website Julian linked to describes our method. Here's the link to get directly to that video:
http://www2.aashe.org/competitions/video-player?video=Advertising.wmv
Good luck with your event!
-Sam Hummel
IT Team
AASHE
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Hi Lindsey,
In case you haven't already come across these resources already, AASHE has a Dorm vs Dorm Sustainability Competitions site and the student research database has a report called Organizing Residence Hall Conservation Competitions: A Guide for Students (pdf).
I hope these are useful!
Julian
Julian Dautremont-Smith
MBA/MS Candidate, Class of 2012
Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise
Stephen M. Ross School of Business | School of Natural Resources & Environment
University of Michigan
http://www.linkedin.com/in/juliands