3/8/2015
Sustainability Survey
By: Brian Baird and Issa Hassan
Abstract:
This paper goes over the findings of a research survey. The aim was to find habits that students at The Evergreen State College would be willing to change that would save energy and/or resources. With climate change emerging as a threat to earth systems that life depends on we need to change some ways in which we live. Voluntary change is one aspect that deserves to be looked at which this research project does.
Introduction:
The goal of this project was to find habits of Evergreen students that could be changed to save energy and/or resources. This is in response to project guidelines of helping the Evergreen campus gain sustainability. Energy and resource use are the biggest contributors to climate change. Reducing these would benefit the fight against climate change. This project is not trying to reduce energy and resource use directly but provide data that can be used for reduction. It seems more likely that a change will be favorably accepted if the individuals it affects expressed their desire for it. Finding data of habits people are willing to change is important. To move forward in greenhouse gas reduction it is helpful to know what sacrifices people are willing to make.
Methods:
To find data that would help shed light on sustainable changes we needed to first identify habits that used resources or energy. These habits also needed to have the ability to be changed. It was decided that the best way to gain input from a large number of people would be through a survey. Once we drafted some habits we took some of the most promising and turned them into survey questions. The main way analyzing habits was to look for easy changes so more people would hopefully support them. The final has a mix of top down and bottom up based questions that would conserve energy/resources to various degrees. We are moderately confident in the quality and thoroughness of this inquiry. It certainly needs more work to become an effective agent of change but some results are promising.
Results:
The results and questions on the survey are shown below.
Q1. Do you think Evergreen should be a leader in sustainability and clean energy?
Yes(27)No(1)Unsure
Q2. Would you be willing to ban all beverages sold in plastic bottles on campus? e.g. soda and juice
Yes(22)No(5)Unsure(1)
Q3. Would you be willing to have building temperatures turned down by 5 degrees fahrenheit in the winter?
Yes(14)No(9)Unsure(5)
Q4. Are you willing to unplug your electronic devices when not in use?
Yes(26)NoUnsure(2)
Q5. Would you eat food made from insects if available at the Greenery and or the Flaming Eggplant?
Yes(9) No(11) Unsure(8)
Q6. Would be willing to have 5 minute timed showers?
Yes(13)No(10)Unsure(5)
Q7. Are you willing to travel by bus/bike/ or walking for all trips under 5 miles?
Yes(18)No(5)Unsure(5)
Discussion/Significance:
The following will discuss the significance of each individual question and then trends as a whole.
Q1: The first question just sets the tone for the rest. The data strongly shows that students feel their campus should be a leader sustainability and clean energy.
Q2: This question asks if participants would support a ban on plastic water bottles. About 80% of responses were a yes. This is a good sign that a bottle ban could be implemented. If this happened then the resources and energy required to produce, ship, and cool plastic bottles would be eliminated. What is uncertain as to impact reduction is costs accumulated by switching the products to alternative distribution products.
Q3: This question addresses buildings heating costs. The results to a 5 degree fahrenheit reduction in winter temperature were about 50% in support, 35% against and the rest not sure. The results do not strongly support this measure though energy savings would be assured.
Q4: According to our survey more students are willing to unplug their electronics when they are not in use. None of the students voted no but a few voted they were not sure. Those that voted yes either said yes because the know the results or they felt like that is the answer.According to the survey, Evergreen students are willing to leave the habits of leaving the devices unplugged for sustainability. By doing that the school will save a lot money and energy.
Q5: This question attempts to find if people are willing to supplement some meat from animals with that of insects. Research shows insects to be a much more efficient way to grow animal protein. Unfortunately the results are about 31% in support and 41% against. To make this a viable option more research is needed as the data collected here is strongly against consumption of insects.
Q6: Water is precious resource. We only have 1% of water that is available for human resources. We all love taking long steaming showers. Some of us use it to wake ourselves and others take it because it feels fantastic.Although taking 5 min shower would save a lot of water, not many of the students were big fan of reducing the shower length to 5 min. Unlike the electronics, taking showers are way more important so is difficult for people to change their habits.
Q7: According to our survey more students are willing to take public bus,bike or walk. By doing that they would reduce C02 emissions. Public transportation is a crucial part of the solution to saving energy, and environmental challenges. If students do do change their ways of driving to very close places than we are one step closer to being greener
I’ve noticed that unplugging electricity and using the bus, bike or walking is way easier and students are willing to change their habits. While showers are harder because students want to feel good and conditioners take long time to wash them off. There may be a thread that makes habits more or less likely to be changed. The questions with the least support included shortening showers, lowering building temp, and eating insects. These are all related to our senses of taste, sight, or feel. The other three had much more support and did not directly deal with the senses. This leads to broader questions of what things we are willing to change and what we are not.
Acknowledge:
We are grateful Nancy and Zita for helping us improve our ideas as well as gives good feedback. We are also grateful to our peers for taking there time to give us good feedback. I would also like to thank Paisley Gallagher for her help in gathering data.
Reference:
Baird, Brian E. "Sign in to Your Account." SurveyMonkey. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2015. <
-Survey design website
Centre For Pollution Control & Environmental Engineering, Chinnakalapet Pondicherry University, Puducherry 605 014, and Speaker: Tasneem Abbasi. A More Sumptuous and Sustainable Source of Animal Protein than Macrolivestock: Edible Insects (n.d.): n. pag. Web.
-Edible insect information
West, Larry. "Take Public Transportation - Save Money, Save The World." N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2015. <
-Transportation information
"U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis." Heating and Cooling No Longer Majority of U.S. Home Energy Use. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2015. <
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"Does a Mobile Phone Charger That Is Plugged in but Has No Phone Attached to It Use Energy?" - Skeptics Stack Exchange. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2015. <
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"Shower Water and Energy Use Calculator - Pays to Live Green." Pays to Live Green. N.p., 06 Jan. 2009. Web. 08 Mar. 2015. <
-Shower information
Gleick, Peter H. Bottled and Sold: The Story behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water. Washington, DC: Island, 2010. Print.
-Plastic bottle costs