Calendar

Mapping out a yearly calendar before the year begins will allow the green living program (GLP) participants to have a clear vision of how to meet their goals. The calendar will allow you to break down your campaigns and decide when each will happen. You will then be able to break the campaigns down into smaller work plans.

When determining your own schedule and adapting programs to your campus, consider the following:

  • coordinating with steering group

Does dining services already do a waste audit? If so, you will want to focus on food waste that week or the following one.

  • alternating types of programming

Intersperse study breaks, group events and weeks of tabling in the dining hall with other activities.

  • linking to calendar, national or campus events

Talk about green gifts before the holidays or recycling before a big party weekend. Be sure to give the program reps enough time to carry out their campaigns before everyone disappears for the holiday or holds their parties!

  • planning for the weather

Do not educate about heating too far in advance of the heat being turned on. Do not plan to plant mini windmills in the ground for your wind energy campaign when the ground is frozen. Do not ask students to spend hours tabling outside if it is cold. DO take advantage of the weather by having reps wear bikinis over their winter clothes to get attention for your "adjust the thermostat" campaign.

  • taking advantage of the enthusiasm of your group for a particular project

A project will be more successful if there is a rep excited about it and makes it his or her own.

  • getting administrative support

Is your recycling program manager willing to back your plans for a "Mt. Recyclemore?" If not, you may have a hard time obtaining the necessary permissions.

  • getting outside support

Will a biofueled bus or solar panel van be coming by your campus on tour? If so, have reps talk about transportation or clean power that week.

  • using giveaways

Does the facilities department have a budget for lightbulb exchanges? Connect lightbulbs to a theme, such as "brighten up" before midterm period or "lighten up" before spring break.

  • developing habits

As dorm residents are familiarizing themselves with their new living quarters, get them on the right track by focusing on recycling and efficient laundry practices. This is particularly applicable if you hire reps before the end of the preceding spring term, in which case they can be trained and ready to go when students arrive in the fall.

  • adjusting for academic schedules

Assign lighter or more flexible projects when academic loads are heaviest, such as during midterms and before finals.

  • carefully assessing time availability

If the GLP schedule is almost full, do not take on time-intensive projects, such as a survey about laundry practices. If you are going to try to squeeze something in, go for something like a "three top tips" campaign for efficient clothes washing.

  • providing students with time to work on individual projects

Many of the Harvard Green Campus Initiative GLP campaigns evolved out of individual projects that laid the groundwork for a group campaign the following year.

  • looking for publicity opportunities

Does your campus have a group email list for the area covered by the GLP? If so, you can use it to efficiently remind students about competition standings or send time-sensitive updates about the location of reuseable collection bins. If no email list exists, can you set one up? For example, you might be able to do this through campus computing services or a free Yahoo group. Do you have access to a banner-hanging space in a frequented area of campus? You could use this to raise spirit for inter-campus competitions.