CAMPUS SUSTAINABILITY FUND PROPOSAL

This proposal addresses stated priorities of the Office of Sustainability: to consider solutions that create meaningful change on campus and strengthen sustainability planning. There is a need to raise awareness about sustainability issues, unify programming efforts on behalf of environmental groups, and increase student engagement; as no integrated format presently exists. This proposal addresses that need and provides a course of action with measurable objectives. Additionally, it aspires to have the Office of Sustainability learn from students about how they want to hear/be alerted to sustainability initiatives and efforts on campus. Therefore, this proposal argues for a campus sustainability app, called UVM Eco-System.  

The UVM Eco-system app will provide an integrated and efficient approach to communicate and leverage sustainability initiatives across campus. This project would seek to partner with the UVM Eco-Reps program as a way to publicize the Eco-Reps’ work in various areas of sustainability. It will provide a platform for raising awareness about sustainability events, offer notifications and keep track of dates, times, locations and links to meetings in one singular location. This app will target the goal of increasing inclusivity, access and fairness to learning about and participating in sustainability. It will provide a basic or advanced education to students depending on their willingness to participate. This app would appeal to our generation as well because it is easy to use and is a way to connect with other students with similar interests.  This project would be attractive to the UVM community because it creates visible change across measurable scales through student involvement. 

The University of Vermont has been able to introduce similar apps that have been successful and brought campus-wide change. The Wellness app is a perfect example of this, where the app is used to nudge behaviors to create a more-well campus. Therefore, the sustainability app intends to create a more sustainable campus following similar principles of design and function.  

This project is feasible because other comparable schools have piloted similar apps. In 2018, a student at University of Pennsylvania tested the possibility for a sustainability app with the intention of uniting campus and documenting students’ sustainability actions. This app was used by a test group of 100 students. The app itself was designed to send out push notifications, and was most useful in advertising events. I propose a similar experimental test group of students at UVM as a way to determine if there is an interest and need for a sustainability app at UVM.  

The creation of an App, along with a test on students, will be a multi-phase process. I propose that the Campus Sustainability Fund allocate funds for me to complete the first phase. This will include 100 hours of investigative and creative work in the Spring 2022 semester to complete the following: 

• Twenty hours to speak and survey the Eco-Reps and receive feedback on how a partnership might work. Ideally, this app would be designed in conjunction with the Eco-Reps program in order to identify the most important and relevant content to improve campus-wide sustainability participation and knowledge. 
  
  

• Twenty hours to conduct surveys with UVM students if they believe this would be a valuable app and why.
  
  

• After this internal research is completed, twenty hours to conduct research on other schools' sustainability initiatives and similar apps as well as possible platforms, software and features. 
  
  

• Then, once this external research is complete, it would be important to again survey students about the kinds of features they would desire, which would likely consume twenty hours. Similarly, built within this fourth period of 20 hours I would look for other students who would like to help me to make this app a reality, so we could form a team.  

• Finally, in the last stage of phase one twenty hours would be spent thinking about how the data would be used, and how the sustainability feedback from the app could be transferred back to AASHE.  

Within the latest AASHE Stars report, for sustainability planning UVM scored 1 / 4 points because there are no objectives related to academics and research that communicate

student, employee, and community engagement for sustainability. UVM Eco-System incorporates academics, and campus-wide engagement, and can boost points in this category with the data it collects. 

The goal is to complete these 100 hours in Spring 2022, and once complete, assess phase II, which will be completed in AY22-23 and in which the app will be launched.

Timeline for completion: 100 hours this coming Spring semester, broken up into 20 hours per set of related tasks. Follow up after initial phase 1. Phase 2 to be executed and planned after data and results are examined. 

Milestones 1 -5 

Start date February 1st. 

1. February 22nd first twenty hours completed

2. March 15th second twenty hours complete

3. April 5th third twenty hours complete

4. April 26th fourth twenty hours complete 

5. May 17th final twenty hours complete

Budget: 15 per hour for 100 hours = $1500 To compensate for work done during the Spring semester. Hours per week = 7, beginning the first week of Spring semester. 

Incentives for surveying students to collect data: $200 to encourage students to give feedback on ideas. Ideally, I would partner with a local, sustainable business to offer students a reward for taking a survey. 

Total Budget Request: $1,700