Carbon Emissions Campaign Intervention
Overview of our Campaign Intervention
In Spring of 2018, I took an Environmental and Public Health Communications course as an elective. I learned the process of design and creating materials to convey a Public Health or Environmental concern to an audience. A team f 3 students and I worked on a semester long project that allowed us to solve a problem by creating a communication based intervention. We presented our project at SpARC (Spring annual research conference) at Agnes Scott College.
According to data our team received from the Office of Sustainability, 65% of Agnes Scott College’s carbon emissions are a result of our electricity usage. Our campaign’s focus is to lower the carbon footprint caused by residential student’s electricity usage. Since, electricity is the largest sector, and most controllable sector, our team believes we can encourage students to reduce their usage of AC, charging devices, and lights. The ultimate goal of this campaign is to reduce the carbon footprint of residential students by 2% at Agnes Scott College. There are many components of this goal that need to be addressed in order to reduce carbon emissions. The first component is for students to become more aware of the issue surrounding carbon emissions, and how carbon emissions affects their communities. The second component of this campaign is to introduce various actions and/or strategies that will allow student to reduce their personal carbon footprint, even if it is by a small amount. Tracking the electricity one-month pre and during the campaign (obtained from the Center for Sustainability), will allow us to understand how our campaign helped reduce the electricity uses.
After the completion of our campaign, we would like students to understand how their carbon footprint is calculated and what actions they can take to reduce their carbon footprint in small increments. We intend for students to learn more about carbon foot printing through the communication campaign material we create such as posters, infographics, and challenges. Consequently, after learning more about carbon emissions through our communication material, we want students to feel empowered to use less electricity when possible.
Market Research Methods
Design Surveys
include questions about:
carbon footprint awareness
electricity uses
how important carbon emissions are
Market research on residential students use of electricity at Agnes Scott
Post-Campaign Survey
Include questions:
how many people were aware of the campaign
Did the infographics help students grasp the importance of carbon reduction emissions
whether the strategies provided by the campaign team helped
