University of California, Davis
EN-5: Outreach Campaign

This annual sustainability engagement campaign is administered by Student Housing and Dining Services (SHDS) and is open to all student residents. It was first implemented in 2014-2015 when it was primarily administered by the SHDS Sustainability team, including both professional staff and Sustainability Peer Educators. The campaign consists of a friendly competition between residence hall teams. Since 2022, SHDS has partnered with UC Davis Sustainability’s Bonnie Reiss Climate Action Fellows to offer the challenge using the UC wide Cool Campus Challenge sustainability pledge online platform. The platform allows individuals to sign up for the competition, join their residence hall team, complete a series of sustainability actions or pledges to accumulate points and progress to higher and higher score levels, and quantify the impact of actions, e.g., gallons of water saved, lbs. of CO2 eliminated, kWH saved, etc.

Participation is promoted through a wide variety of outreach methods

- Regular tabling events in Dining Commons
- Flyers in entrances to all participating residence buildings
- Information on LCD screens in Dining Areas
- Features in the Sustainability & Nutrition Newsletter (~600 subscribers)
- Features in the UC Davis Sustainability Newsletter (~3000 subscribers)
- Features in the Aggie Reader (~7000 subscribers)
- Content on Sustainability Bulletin Boards in Dining Commons, Area Serve Desks, and Community Advisor Boards
- Information shared with Resident Directors/Community Advisors
- Community Advisors (CA) attending CA Sustainability Specialty Assignment sessions were encouraged to promote the Challenge to their communities and email templates were provided
- Social Media: 2 Instagram/Facebook Posts, 2 Instagram Stories, 1 Instagram Reel

Example Actions:

-DIY a climate-saving action
-Learn more about issues of environmental justice
-Leave your car at home this week
-Read your campus climate action plan
-Reduce and reuse - avoid single/short-use items and opt for reusable.
-Go paperless for a day
-Go zero waste for a day
-Learn about UCD's zero waste goals
-Sort your waste properly
-What is your plastic footprint?
-Check out TherMOOstat and let us know how you rate the temperature of your space
-Dress for the weather
-Find out how efficient different campus building are on the CEED platform
-Follow UC Davis Joules on Instagram (@ucdavisjoules)
-Reduce vampire loads
-Reduce your computer power usage
-Take the stairs
-Turn down the brightness of your monitor
-Turn off the lights in empty common areas
-Turn off your monitor when you're away
-Understand your energy use
-Use a power strip or a smart power strip for extra convenience in energy saving
-Wash your laundry in cold water
-Learn how to use your thermostat

2022 SHDS Energy & Water Challenge: https://www.coolcampuschallenge.org/2022EandWC

2023 SHDS Energy & Water Challenge: https://www.coolcampuschallenge.org/2023EWC

Note: Links are no longer active because each challenge period has ended

See additional documentation to support submission.

Measured positive impacts of campaigns summarize below for 2022 and 2023 campaign years.

2022 Energy & Water Challenge Performance Metrics:

-217 resident participants
-14 building teams
-62 students at DIY Terrarium Building Event
-615 actions logged

2022 Energy & Water Challenge Performance Metrics:

-192 resident participants
-12 building teams
-35 students at DIY Terrarium Building Event
-56 students at Mushroom Lamp Workshop
-802 actions logged
-Estimated 24,329 lbs. of CO2 saved

UC Davis Sustainability and Student Housing and Dining Services (SHDS) have been collaborating for over two years on a campaign to advance progress towards UC Davis Zero Waste goals by encouraging the campus community, including staff, faculty, and students, to reduce their usage of single-use utensils. Efforts began with a survey to ascertain current usage of on-the-go reusable utensil sets, identify what type of reusable utensils (e.g., bamboo, steel, etc.) and carrying containers were preferred, and collect information on current barriers to usage of reusable utensils. This survey was administered and advertised widely, at tabling events, including the UC Davis Farmers Market, the Thank Goodness for Staff (TGFS) staff appreciation event, the Sustainability newsletter, the SHDS Sustainability Newsletter, and on the UC Davis Sustainability website. Participants were incentivized by being given the opportunity to be entered into a raffle for sustainable swag. Based on data collected from respondents, in Fall 2022 SHDS and Sustainability collaboratively purchased 6,750 stainless steel reusable utensil sets (including fork, knife, straw, brush, and chopsticks in washable neoprene cases, imprinted with campaign URL zerowaste.ucdavis.edu) and launched a distribution and education campaign. To date, over 6,000 reusable utensil sets have been distributed at dozens of distribution events, including nine UC Davis Farmers Markets, a Staff Assembly Winter Warmer event, the Plant Science Research Symposia, in welcome packets distributed to new employees, a student STEM career networking event, and more. To increase visibility and enhance buy-in from campus eateries – where most single use utensils are acquired – four “takeovers” were planned where utensil sets were distributed by food service employees with every purchase. Outreach via social media, LCD signage, A-frames, newsletters, and the Sustainability website shared information about every distribution event. Campus community members not able to attend in-person events were shipped utensil sets via intercampus mail – this option was particularly appreciated by many staff in more remote parts of our large campus.

Embrace Reuse campaign page: https://sustainability.ucdavis.edu/zerowaste

UC Davis Zero Waste Goals: https://sustainability.ucdavis.edu/goals/zero-waste

Reusable Utensil Feedback Survey

592 respondents (560 undergraduates, 9 graduate students, 5 faculty, 15 staff, 3 other)

% of participants that do not already own on-the-go reusable utensils: 69%

The most selected reason for not using on-the-go reusable utensil sets was “I don’t own an on-the-go reusable utensils set”.

Embrace Reuse Distribution Campaign

Over 6,000 stainless steel reusable utensil sets distributed. If each item within each set (knife, spoon, fork, straw, chopsticks) gets used every day for a single work week – an intentionally conservative estimate – this campaign has the potential to reduce campus waste from single use utensils, straws, and chopsticks by 1,080 lbs. per week.

Healthy Beverage Initiative: Launched by Healthy UC Davis, the Healthy Beverage Initiative (HBI) aims to improve access to fresh, filtered water, provide information on the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and promote campus hydration stations. In 2022-23, the Healthy Beverage Initiative has directed its efforst toward Educational Outreach and Increasing Access to Water. Educational outreach efforst have focused on emphasizing the sustainability, financial, and health benefits of choosing water over other beverages. While increasing access efforts have resulted in the installation of dozens of water stations, creation of a water ambassadors signage campaign (See EN-04 Supporting documents), and launch of a H20 Station Map created by Student Health and Counseling Services illustrating the locations of water stations on the UC Davis campus.

Healthy Beverage Initiative: https://healthy.ucdavis.edu/healthy-beverage-initiative

Hydrate to Feel Great campaign and H20 Station Map: https://shcs.ucdavis.edu/health-and-wellness/nutrition-and-food/hydrate-feel-great

Nourish Food Labelling System – Nourish UC Davis is a campus-wide signage and nutritional guideline initiative that strives to make it easier for the UC Davis community to identify and choose nourishing foods when dining on campus. Nourish UC Davis provides campus consumers with transparent nutritional information that allows them to make the most well-informed nutritious choice. Foods that meet Nourish guidelines typically contain more fruits and vegetables, fiber, whole grains, healthy fats and less added sugar, sodium and saturated fats. The guidelines make it easier to identify healthier choices and encourage campus dining staff to alter current recipes or develop new recipes that meet the guidelines. All campus eateries now have Nourish labelled foods available and have established a baseline of offerings that currently meet Nourish guidelines or could meet guidelines with minor adjustments. Students led weekly outreach events at each location to increase awareness. Additionally, Healthy Aggies, a student group that offers nutrition and food programming on campus, partnered with Nourish and promoted the icon at their weekly outreach events in the Dining Commons.

Nourish Food Labeling System: https://healthy.ucdavis.edu/eating-well/nourish-labels

See additional documentation to support submission.

Sustainable Move-Out Donation Drive: Aggies Give & Go - Student Housing and Dining Services collects donations of gently used reusable goods and non-perishable foods during finals week as residents move out of the residence halls. These items are donated to on-campus and local community partners so they can continue to be used by others. Donation stations are set up in multiple residence hall locations, bag for donations, recycling, and landfill waste are provided. Residents are encourage to use the the Residence Halls Waste Diversion Guide for instructions and locations for diverting Recyclables, Compostable Waste, eWaste, and Household Hazardous Waste from the landfill. SHDS works with a number of campus and community partners to put donations to good use. In previous years, this has included:

Goodwill Industries, a community based non-profit organization that provides employment opportunities for people with disabilities or other special needs

The ASUCD Aggie Reuse Store, an on campus student-run second-hand shop located on campus

Aggie Compass, an on-campus center that connects students to resources for food, housing, mental health, and other basic needs

ASUCD The Pantry, an on-campus group that provides food and basic necessities for UC Davis students

Yolo Food Bank, a local food bank that helps to alleviate hunger and malnutrition in Yolo County by providing and distributing food to those in need

Donation support communities in need and help keep waste out of the landfill. Since 2001, Student Housing and Dining Services has donated over 160,000 pounds of reusable goods and over 21,000 pounds of non-perishable food through our move-out donation drive.

Residence Halls Waste Diversion Guide: https://housing.ucdavis.edu/sustainability/waste-diversion-guide/

Aggies Give & Go: https://housing.ucdavis.edu/sustainability/move-out/

Residence Halls Waste Diversion Guide: https://housing.ucdavis.edu/sustainability/waste-diversion-guide/

Davis VS Cal Sustainability Challenge: Cool Campus Challenge - In the Spring of 2023, the UC Davis Environmental Policy Planning Commission (EPPC) and a team of UC Berkeley Students initiated a program coined the “Davis VS Cal Sustainability Challenge”. This student-led initiative invited the student-body of each school to participate in a

friendly competition, recording their sustainable actions to earn points using the UC wide Cool Campus Challenge sustainability pledge online platform. The platform allows individuals to sign up for the competition, complete a series of sustainability actions or pledges to accumulate points and progress to higher and higher score levels, and quantify the impact of actions. The competition for the Spring of 2023 was open for participants April 3rd-28th, and at the end, the campus with the most engagement won the title “The Most Sustainable Campus”. At the conclusion of the program, UC Davis won this competition by succeeding in accumulating the most engagement both in terms of participants (those who signed up) and active participants (those who made one or more actions).

See additional documentation to support submission.

Healthy Department Certification - The Healthy Department Certification was launched in Fall 2018 by UC Davis Safey Services and is designed to highlight those departments that are making strides toward practicing and promoting health and well-being in the workplace. There are currently a total of 139 departments certified including 76 departments certified at UC Davis or UC Davis remote sites. The process of certification focuses on eight areas of well-being and aims to start a conversation on where your department is doing well as well as highlight areas that have room for improvement.

Healthy Department Certification - https://safetyservices.ucdavis.edu/units/occupational-health/health-well-being/dept-certification

Thermoostat - TherMOOstat is a tool for UC Davis campus users to let us know if your room feels cold, chilly, perfect, warm or hot. By using TherMOOstat you're participating in crowdsourced comfort on campus. The TherMOOstat campaign features Joules the cow from the Energy Conservation Office. This mascot is described as an advocate for thermal comfort at UC Davis. The information gathered by the Thermoostat program is used to accomplish two goals: 1. To verify submitted data against the building's HVAC system data, outside air temperatures, and occupancy information to address issues in comfort; 2. To identify energy saving opportunities by aggregating and trending feedback over longer periods of time.

Thermoostat: https://thermoostat.ucdavis.edu/

Thermoostat Success Stories: https://www.comfort.ucdavis.edu/success-stories