This post summarizes the impact our community made over the four weeks of the campaign, with actions focused on sustainable food choices, waste reduction, connecting with nature and supporting personal wellness!
Who participated
Over 200 people signed up for the challenge from across the University. Of this, we had over 150 staff and Faculty members and 60 students. This demonstrates that no matter who you are or what your role is at the University, your actions do matter in promoting community-wide sustainability, and that the actions we shared are possible by anyone!
Celebrating our collective action
We asked you to take action, and you sure did! Over the four-week campaign, over 2,000 actions (2,055 to be precise) were completed by people just like you. While taking one action may seem small or even insignificant, we hope you can see how impactful our individual actions are at creating collective change and embedding a culture of sustainability into the University community!
On a week-by-week basis, the most actions were taken during Week 2 on reducing waste (559 actions). This was followed by Week 1 on sustainable food (527 actions), Week 4 on promoting personal wellness (489 actions), and Week 3 on connecting with nature (485 actions).
When looking at individual actions, many of the five actions shared each week had over 100 people complete them. The three actions that our participants completed the most were:
- Using reusable containers or items (146 actions)
- Eating a plant-based meal once per day/week (145 actions)
- Taking care of an indoor plant (143 actions)
What made these actions so popular is that many of our participants were already doing them! It’s important to recognize the strong foundation our campus community already brings to sustainability efforts, and we celebrate all the new actions taken throughout the month.
Challenges with living sustainably
In addition to celebrating the successes, it’s important to acknowledge the challenges. Each week, we asked participants to share what they found most challenging about incorporating sustainability into their lives. Some of the most common barriers shared related to accessibility, such as no composting or recycling services in apartment buildings or no zero waste stores available nearby. Others noted difficulties with using reusable containers at stores, engaging in outdoor activities and so on.
Tied to this was convenience, in which completing the actions required more time than what participants normally did, which was problematic with their busy schedules. For instance, many participants said that making their own self-care products was too time-consuming. This is a fair point, especially when such actions are unfamiliar - however, as you do them more often and become more comfortable with them, the less time they take to complete!
Relevant to this year especially were concerns about sustainability and COVID-19 restrictions. For instance, many stores do not allow customers to use reusable containers right now, and lockdown make it difficult to spend a lot of time outdoors off your own property. Despite these challenges, our community managed as best as they could to promote sustainability. This reflects an important lesson: make the most of your current situation and do what works best for you!
It is important to address the challenges with living sustainably as a first step to developing solutions. Thank you for taking the time to consider the challenges you face both at home and on campus and for sharing them with us. We hope that the Sustainability Office can help overcome these challenges by sharing resources, strengthening engagement programs, and improving infrastructure on campus.
Final thoughts and next steps
We hope that this Earth Month Challenge has demonstrated just how important individual actions are for creating change. Everyone has the power to take at least one action in their life to promote sustainability, and while that make look different depending on your living situation, accessibility needs, interests and more, it’s all really meaningful. Our four themes also reflect the fact that sustainability is a very broad concept. It's not just about the environment, it's also about social factors such as your health and wellbeing. Many of the actions promoted during the month, such as eating locally grown fruits and vegetables daily, promotes environmental, social, and economic wellbeing. In other words, they can contribute to a holistic approach to sustainability.
Importantly, these actions should be in combination with broader-scale societal and policy changes. For example, we can work to reduce our personal waste while also demanding more transparent and responsible supply changes. We will need change from both ends to foster truly sustainable societies.
Going forward, we hope you will apply the actions you have taken over the month into your ongoing life, such as eating more plant-based meals, taking breaks and getting outdoors, sorting your waste properly and more. Moreover, we hope the Earth Month challenge showed you (or reminded you!) how easy and possible it is to live sustainably in a variety of ways - now keep that momentum going and strive to make your lifestyle more sustainable every day!