Primary Contact Name: Kira Stoll, Sustainability Specialist 1

Primary Contact Name: Kira Stoll, Sustainability Specialist 1

Project Name: Talking Louder: The Next Generation

2011 project grant application

General Information

Project title: Talking Louder about Sustainability: The Next Generation

Communication Specialists Creating a Lasting Culture of Sustainability

Sponsoring Organization: Office of Sustainability

Total amount requested from TGIF: $7,500

Amount Requested as: X Grant Loan (Estimated payback period of loan in months:___)

Primary contact:

Name

/ Kira Stoll
Title and department / Sustainability Specialist
Office of Sustainability
Phone / 510-642-0074
Email /

Secondary contact (if applicable):

Name

Title and department
Phone
Email

How did you hear about this grant? Have received grants in past years.

Registered student organization or campus unit through which the grant funds will be administered (if no entity is listed, your fiscal agent will automatically default to be TGIF):

Office of Sustainability (no additional approval needed, since the Director of the Office is on the project team).

For each listed entity, please submit a completed “Project Approval” form. Project Approval forms will not be counted toward your application page limit.

Project Description

1.  Please give a brief history of this project/your organization. Describe the overall purpose (goals) of the project.

Expanding the culture of sustainability at UC Berkeley – a goal of the Office of Sustainability (Office) and TGIF – requires improving access to information on an on-going basis, educating a broad range of community members, and empowering people to take positive action. Over the last two years the Office and a team of students have done this through hard-hitting communication efforts. We have raised sustainability awareness and helped reduce campus environmental impacts – including those related to electricity and water use, transportation choices, waste and recycling, food, and purchasing. Talking Louder has accomplished:

·  Through lectures, tabling, tours, roundtables, forums, and meetings, the Office talked sustainability with 7,600 faculty, staff, and students.

·  The bright green news went from a subscription base of 400 to 1,400, representing a 250% increase in readership. Attendance at four student sustainability forums grew over 400% and the number of student groups presenting also doubled.

·  There have been nine certified green departments, representing at least 10% of the campus staff and faculty. The Office has also certified 25 green events, which were attended by around 13,000 people. Event planners have flexibility in the steps they take to be certified, but 72% chose to offer composting and 60% offered at least 10% sustainable food.

Talking Louder hasn’t meant actually shouting at people and not noticing if they listened. Instead, we compiled useful information and worked to draw people’s attention to that information. Evidence of our impacts may be anecdotal or hard to quantify. For example, we educated new students and staff on the UC Berkeley-specific ways to recycle and access alternative transportation, but we have no way to track specific changes in behavior or impacts. Similarly, we shared articles on sustainability so that learning is not limited to classrooms, including on specific ways to reduce energy (e.g., details for winter curtailment). We brought student groups together and included new students in those meetings to introduce them to campus efforts. green departments and green events all added green initiatives as part of their certification – whether it was eliminating bottled water or buying local or organic food or reducing the number of appliances in break rooms. We know that many of the event planners didn’t know how to contract for composting before this program.

As the Office moves into our third year, the current Talking Louder team of students will be in their final year at Cal. To continue their great work, expand on it, and create lasting change, a next generation of student communication specialists needs to be engaged in the Talking Louder about Sustainability campaign. The proposed project - Talking Louder: The Next Generation - will connect the current student team with new student team members for about nine months so that knowledge and experience can be passed on and fresh ideas incorporated. The new team will then take over the following academic year.

2.  What will be the process for implementing your project? Describe the key components and steps of your project.

The student Communications Specialists will work with Director of Sustainability and the Sustainability Specialist to implement and expand the outreach initiatives. The project will run from June 2011 through May 2013. The Office is requesting TGIF funds for communication internships both for our current team for next year and the next generation of specialists for next two academic years. The Talking Louder: Next Generation will continue to host student forums, produce the office newsletter, outreach through events and meetings, create content on the four Office websites, provide interactive communications through Facebook, and expand the green certification programs. In addition, new outreach ideas and partnerships will be fostered, with the goal of reaching an even wider audience.

3.  Which aspects of campus sustainability will your project address, and why is addressing these sustainability components important? How will your project benefit the UC Berkeley campus community as a whole?

This outreach campaign is directly tied to the near-term initiatives that advance campus sustainability in areas of energy and climate, water, transportation, food, waste reduction, and purchasing. By educating the campus community, we help create the enabling conditions for positive behavior change and future sustainability projects and initiatives.

4.  Does your project tie into any broader campus sustainability initiatives? If so, how?

Talking Louder will accelerate and enhance the work program of the Office (which has a broad sustainability mandate), the campus climate target and the Cal Climate Action Partnership (CalCAP), the goals of the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Sustainability, and the University of California Office of the President “Policy on Sustainable Practices”. It will also coordinate with the new marketing campaign being developed as part of the Energy Management Initiative.

Project Approvals (Projects will not be considered without the relevant approvals).

5.  Do any aspects of your project require approval from an entity on or off campus? If so, please explain. (For example, a project which affects campus grounds or buildings must be approved by the Vice Chancellor for Facilities Services) For each listed entity, please submit a completed “Project Approval” form. Project Approval forms will not be counted toward your application page limit.

No additional approvals are required.

Metrics and Measurability

6.  What quantifiable sustainability impacts will your project have and what will be the cost savings to the campus? How do these impacts fit into the larger campus context (For example, what fraction of campus electricity use does your savings represent)? Please use the CalCAP Statistics spreadsheet in your calculations and submit it separately from your application. The 2009 Campus Sustainability Assessment contains additional information on campus resource usage.

Success will be measured by an expanded readership of the newsletter and websites, more Facebook friends, additional green certifications, new attendees to the student sustainability forums and more. These efforts directly reduce environmental impacts through the changes made by green departments and events and through the behavior changes promoted by the newsletter, websites, and other avenues. These efforts will also help lay the groundwork and the enabling conditions for other projects on campus and for other positive changes. See also Question #14.

7.  How will you measure these impacts after your project is implemented in order to see if you have met your goal? In addition to TGIF, who will you report your information to?

a) Annually, the campus conducts a greenhouse gas emissions inventory and updates the

campus Climate Action Plan – through these processes climate and energy progress

associated with the promotional campaign will be measured.

b) Annually, the Campus Sustainability Report is updated – through this reporting

process, impacts, and improvements associated with the campaign will be analyzed.

c) Annually, the campus reports to UCOP on aspects of the UC “Policy on Sustainable Practices,” and results of this campaign may be reflected in this.

d) The outcomes will also be shared through a variety of Office communications avenues.

All of the above mechanisms report to and reach a broad base of campus and UC

stakeholders.

8.  How does your project go above and beyond the requirements already mandated by UC Berkeley and/or state law?

For the most part, communications and incorporating sustainability into operations through education and engagement of the campus community are not mandated or specifically called out as requirements, but involving many stakeholders in the process is fundamental to meeting campus sustainability goals.

Project Team

9.  Please identify the project manager(s) as well as the member of the team (liaison) responsible for reporting project status and success in the following tables (each project will be expected to report regularly to the TGIF Coordinator with frequency based on the scale of the project). For each entity listed, please submit a completed “Project Approval” form. If you want to list additional team members, please add the entries to the end of the application. Additional team member information will not count toward your page limit.

Name

/ Kira Stoll
Title and department / Sustainability Specialist
Office of Sustainability
Project Role / Project Manager
Phone / 510-642-0074
Email /
Relevant experience or knowledge for this project / Manages the campus climate action planning, greenhouse gas emissions inventory process and implementation of climate mitigation projects. Also coordinates communications efforts and works on other sustainability initiatives, including grant projects.

Name

/ Lisa McNeilly
Title and department / Director
Office of Sustainability
Phone / 510-643-5907
Email /
Relevant experience or knowledge for this project / Provides campus leadership in a broad range of sustainability issues including areas of climate, water, purchasing, food, land use, service learning for students and more. Lisa has over a decade of experience working on sustainability projects in the public and private sectors.

10.  If your project team is partnering with other organizations, departments, individuals, or other stakeholders, please explain their involvement and include their contact information. For each listed entity, please submit a completed “Project Approval” form. Project Approval forms will not be counted toward your application page limit.

As part of our communications and outreach work, the Talking Louder: The Next Generation project and its interns will regularly interact with a large number of campus groups and individuals. However, no formal partnerships are anticipated.

11.  Please be specific about the ways in which you can ensure that your team will have time available to work on this project. (For example, students might choose to take fewer classes in order to have time to devote to the project. Staff might receive permission from a supervisor to devote X hours per week to the project).

Student associates will work between 5 and 10 hours a week, depending on program demands and student schedules. During summer and break periods, students may work more hours. The campaign initiatives are part of the work program of Office staff – TGIF funding will allow these initiatives to be implemented and to expand much more rapidly, visibly, and comprehensively.

12.  How much of your project will students be involved in? What roles will students play in your project? Does your project target involvement of a certain section of the student body?

Student involvement is at the heart of this project. The internships will be integral to the achievement of the project goals. The student associates will work with staff to develop detailed work plans and will ensure timely completion of their work and final project reports. It will also provide service learning opportunities for the student associates in a variety of sustainability practices. Many of the outreach efforts will be targeted to the student community.

Project Education, Outreach, and Publicity Plan

Note: This section is about letting the campus know what your project has accomplished after you’ve met your project goals. If outreach and education are the primary goals of your project, please describe them above in the section entitled “Project Goals and Quantifiable Impacts.”

13.  What is your plan for publicizing your project on campus?

The Communications Specialists will have the responsibility of preparing articles on their work, as well as other materials related to their program for articles in the monthly campus sustainability newsletter and for information pieces on the campus sustainability websites managed by the Office. In addition, through the newsletter, websites and various other resources, Talking Louder: The Next Generation will have continuous exposure throughout the year as part of the events and activities supported by the program. Stories of the processes, successes and lessons learned in Talking Louder and building a sustainable culture at UC Berkeley will be included as closing communication efforts of the project.

14.  Do you have any specific outreach goals? If so, how will they be measured?

In addition to impacting the sustainability metrics discussed above, some specific goals include:

Web

• With a goal of increasing the site traffic by 20%, create new content with frequent updating on

sustainability.berkeley.edu and affiliated websites for CACS, the Office and CalCAP

• Continue Facebook page for interactive communication and event announcements, with

a goal of fostering more student dialogue; double attendance at student forums and double number of friends of the Facebook page

Outreach Events

• Attend at least 5 events, with the goal of reaching over 1,500 faculty, staff and

students new to campus sustainability

• Participate and/or provide information for bi‐monthly new employee orientations and

periodic academic personnel orientations

• Hold two student forums annually to expand project collaboration

Outreach Materials & Press

• Add 500 new participants to sustainability email listserves

• Distribute 5,000+ sustainability information pieces –mostly electronic‐ to faculty, staff

and students

• Issue a minimum of 8 Bright Green newsletters during the 11‐12 and 12-13 academic year

Targeted Program Campaigns