As “America’s Greenest Campus” kicks off and schools scramble to gather up participants and get their carbon footprints down, I wanted to find out what its creators, leaders, and participating students were feeling.
Over the week, I interviewed Colin Bennet, the campus organizer from leading George Mason University, Thomas Scaramellino, founder and CEO of Climate Culture, and Brian Keane, president of SmartPower. What I found were three very enthusiastic people hopeful of the environmental change the contest could have on many Americans and as for the competitive mindset – virtually missing.
“We’re all striving for the same thing,” Colin Bennet said. “I truly believe that the climate crisis is a ‘human’ problem.”
George Mason is currently in first place. When I asked Colin if he would mind sharing some tips on how other schools could get up to the top as well, he was more than happy to share his own tried and true methods.
1). Ask your professors if you can have five minutes at the beginning of class to talk about the contest. Tell the other students all about “America’s Greenest Campus” and how they can get involved. Give links and have a signup sheet so new participants can get acquainted through email.
2) Or set up a table in the common area of your school and tell passersby all about the contest. Colin mentioned having a laptop at the table with the “America’s Greenest Campus” site ready for new participants to sign up immediately.
But what was the most simple and useful advice? “Talk directly to the students.”
Explain to your friends exactly what the contest is about and make sure that those friends each tell five other people the same. Soon everyone will know about it with word of mouth acting as a domino effect. But what exactly is the contest about? What motivates its creators and what are its nuts and bolts?
I found a wealth of information when I talked to Tom Scaramellino and Brian Keane. Here is a Q and A session we had:
College News: Who came up with the idea for the contest? What’s the history behind it and how did it go from that to the Department of Energy (DOE) ?
Brian Keane: Tom and his team created the platform and contest… From the DOE and Smart Power perspective, our initial focus was in identifying how to best reach out to the “Echo-boomer” generation. This demographic consists of the largest energy wasters in the nation, but they’re also the most open to learning and taking action in order to be part of the solution. With help from the DOE, we began a consumer market research effort to figure out how to speak to this generation. Efficiency 2.0 [the tool that calculates the footprints and earnings of participants] blew us away with their depth of knowledge, commitment, and superior online platform.
Tom Scaramellino: Efficiency 2.0 is a sophisticated carbon calculator basically on steroids. It’s the first software to mirror the lifestyles of its users in order to help them make more environmentally friendly choices. It’s like how Netflix and Amazon can pick up new items for you based on your past choices.
CN: How does “America’s Greenest Campus” account for both large and small schools having an equal chance of winning?
TS: There are two prizes for the schools; one if $5,000 for whomever can gather the most members (this is where large schools would have the advantage) and $5,000 for whomever has the highest percentage of carbon reduction (which is a lot harder for a group that has a lot of members.)
CN: Why only colleges? Why not all educational institutions:?
TS: Since we’re targeting the “Echo-boomers,” college right now is our ideal setting. But there may be something in the works for high schools and elementary schools.
CN: Who is judging the SmartAd video contest? What are they looking for in a winner?
BK: Three years ago SmartPower undertook our “Youtube Clean Energy Ad Challenge.” The contest was a huge success — creating hundreds of videos and generating tremendous interest in clean energy. Then we awarded $10,000 to a student from the University of Nebraska. He made a great ad—“Telephones”—which is still on our site today. So now we want to do the same for energy efficiency. The contest will continue until October 5, 2009 at which point we will then “ask America to vote”. For the next month, we will whittle down the votes to a top ten and then on December 5th, we’ll announce the $10,000 winner!
CN: What do you hope to achieve by centering the contest around carbon footprints only?
TS: We want to educate people on their impact on the environment. Our main problem is the greenhouse effect we’re having with carbon emissions. We have solar and wind power so energy is important and just needs to go into effect. But something like 80% of people would love to reduce their carbon footprint but just don’t know how. As a result only 12% of people end up actually making any changes. So with carbon footprints we have a focus. This was a very tactical choice.
BK: Our interest is not simply in counting carbon footprints, but literally changing consumer behavior for a lifetime.
Our Take:
Have you signed up to Climate Culture yet? Are we friends on it? Well you better hurry up and get your friends involved because the contest ends.
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