By Ava Tribe
Emerson has increased its commitment to sustainability in recent years and the efforts have become more visible to students, faculty, and staff.
However, as a student working in sustainability on campus with admittedly some bias toward the importance of my work and having a deep understanding of exactly what is going on on campus within sustainability, it can be difficult to measure how well our efforts are being seen and understood for the average student at Emerson. Does the average student in film, journalism, theater, etc. who may be involved with organizations and classwork not focused on sustainability have a grasp of campus sustainability efforts? Do students even care what Emerson does to promote sustainability? And is their knowledge of sustainability limited or vast?
As a Sustainability Communication Fellow, my work is centered around the marketing and communication of our efforts, so sharing our goals and progress feels especially necessary to me. Even if our team and campus are working hard to combat climate change and reach our carbon neutrality goals, are we doing our jobs well enough if no one really knows about this work? Does the impact matter as much without the support and understanding from our campus constituents?
Of course, lowering emissions and implementing other sustainability strategies will always be better than not doing these things and our work has made great strides in sustainability on campus. Still, a lot of our goals can only be achieved with the participation of the whole Emerson community. In order to make these initiatives work, we need everyone on board and involved, and that means everyone needs to be knowledgeable about these efforts. This is why sustainability communication and a yearly survey to gauge awareness are key to the continuing efforts of making Emerson sustainable.
When Jennifer Lamy, Associate Director of Sustainability, joined Emerson in the spring of 2022, she prioritized these questions and student involvement by sending out a survey to students about campus sustainability. Again, the survey was fielded in 2023 and 2024. The results leave my team and me inspired, but it also acts as a tool in many ways. The survey results not only serve as a reminder to pat our team on the back for our progress and growth in the past couple of years, but it also helps us to create an action plan for 2025 and gives us indicators on the areas where we need to work to improve our results for the 2025 year.
Analyzing the Results
Data Set 1: Student Agreement
In a question about student knowledge of sustainability initiatives on campus, there were mixed responses on each question asked.
- First, the largest bracket (34%) answered neither agree nor disagree for the statement: Emerson College prioritizes sustainability content in its curriculum. Similarly, in Question 2 of this section, 41% answered that they neither agree nor disagree with the statement: Emerson College prioritizes sustainability in its operations.
- For Statement 3: I know where to go if I want to get involved with sustainability at Emerson, the largest bracket (33%) answered Agree. Yet, in Statement 4: I know where to go if I want information about sustainability at Emerson, 32% answered Disagree.
- The data shifts in Statement 5 as the majority (51%) say that they care that the college they attend prioritizes sustainability and in Statement 6, 37% say they have the tools and knowledge to live a sustainable lifestyle at Emerson. A higher percentage report their lifestyle being more sustainable since attending Emerson.
From this set of data, the answers may seem all over the place, with a disagreement of Emerson caring about sustainability, yet a strong desire for the institution to prioritize sustainability. And if students feel they know how to get involved with and how to live a sustainable lifestyle, we wonder why they don’t report more of a shift in the sustainability of their lifestyle. A possible explanation for this is that students have the desire to involve themselves with sustainability and live a sustainable lifestyle, but either don’t have the time, don’t have a strong enough desire, or simply feel it is work for someone other than themselves.
Data Set 2: Student Familiarity
Next, in Data Set 2, we look at student knowledge of sustainability topics, both on and off campus. We will compare this year’s data to answers from 2022 and 2023.
First, there is a pretty balanced split between not knowing, to having heard but not knowing, and knowing about the UN’s Sustainable Development goals. For anyone curious to learn more about these goals please read here. Most respondents had either heard of or knew about Emerson’s Teach-In on Sustainability, which is impressive given 2024 was only the annual event’s second year. A majority (54%) of respondents had never heard of the Sustainability Fellows program.
As Emerson Green Collective’s president, I was happy to see that 49% knew about EGC, and 42% knew about the Environmental Studies minor. 44% didn’t know about and hadn’t heard of the emissions reduction strategies on campus (ex. LED lighting), but an overwhelming 67% and 69% respectively knew about the recycling/composting initiatives and Green Dining Initiatives. Lastly, 42% hadn’t heard of the Carbon Neutrality Commitment. Before analyzing these results, let’s look at the comparison from recent years’ surveys.
Data Set 3: Comparing Years
This data shows significant improvement in all categories from 2022 to 2024. Each individual’s answer was given a score of 1 (“I have never heard of it”), 2 (“I have heard of it but do not know what it is”), or 3 (“I have heard of it and know what it is”). The numbers on the graph are the average of all response scores for a given year. A higher score indicates greater familiarity with a concept.
The biggest jump is seen in the question about Emerson’s Carbon Neutrality Commitment with a jump from the mean amount of 1.3 to 1.83. This jump may be partially due to a rewording of the question between 2023 and 2024. A steady increase is seen within all other data. This data ultimately concludes that in the past few years, students’ understanding and knowledge of Emerson’s initiatives in carbon neutrality, Green Dining, recycling/composting, emission reduction, environmental studies, environmental groups, sustainability fellows program, the Teach-In on Sustainability, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals has increased, meaning that it can be inferred that the communication practices and strategies implemented have resulted in increased awareness and participation of these goals.
Data Set 4: Student Interest in Sustainability
In Data Set 4, student interest in sustainability in three different categories, environmental sustainability interest, economic sustainability, and social sustainability is displayed. First, 88% of respondents said they were interested in environmental sustainability with no respondents not being interested. 65% were interested in economic sustainability and 70% were interested in social sustainability. This data further displays student interest in sustainability which is positive for our team and efforts to know and understand what areas students are most interested in.
Data Set 5: Waste
In Data Set 5, we can see the change of 2023 to 2024 and how students approach and think about waste on campus. The first two statements,“I know how to properly sort my waste between trash, compost and recycling,” and “I take the time to properly sort my waste between trash, compost, and recycling,” show a rise in response for both statements. Both trends are positive for our waste diversion rate growth and support from students. Next, however, a small decrease is seen from the statements: “Emerson has enough bins for trash, compost, and recycling throughout the campu” and “The signs labeling waste bins on Emerson’s campus are clear.” With this information and student response, our team has worked with facilities to add more waste bins to various locations on campus and with the help of focus groups and Emerson’s marketing office, we have created new waste signage to implement across all of campus. With this feedback, we are able to make changes and hope to see a huge positive rise in response in the 2025 survey on these last two questions.
Data Set 6: Single-Use Items
Lastly, Data Set 6 shows students’ most commonly used single-use items. The top three types of waste are disposable takeout containers, disposable forks/spoons/knives, and disposable beverage cups with disposable beverage cups being the highest (61%). Being in an urban area with many restaurants creates opportunities for students to get to-go food and use single-use plastics like disposable containers and cutlery or drink cups. There is much improvement on the front of students’ responsibility to use reusable dining-ware. With programs in place like the OZZI containers and green dining initiatives of Bon Appetit, there are now many ways to make sustainable replacements and to embrace sustainability on campus. As seen in Data Set 1, 43% of students say they either Agree or Strongly Agree that they have the tools and knowledge to live a sustainable lifestyle at Emerson. We hope they will continue to understand that they do have some responsibility to take that knowledge and implement these measures into their lifestyle.
Conclusions and Final Notes
Based on this data and the results of the 2024 Student Sustainability Survey, it is evident how the progress on campus has been positive in making strides to increase sustainability communication. However, there is still room for improvement from student involvement to sustainability work on our team. With active efforts being implemented currently to better waste signage, more staff added to the sustainability team, more student efforts taking place, and many more great initiatives to reach our goals, we have the ability to make sustainability communication thrive at Emerson. My hope is that students in the future will not only know about and deeply understand each of the avenues of sustainability on campus, but they will also be involved in the work and be ready to explain the efforts to anyone who asks. Sustainability communication is necessary to achieving carbon neutrality and combating climate change even in our small but mighty campus and community.
To reach Emerson’s carbon neutrality goal of 2030 (highlighted details here) we will need the support of students, faculty, and staff. I strongly encourage you to explore the resources listed below and consider getting involved with campus sustainability and educating yourself and others on our efforts.
- For students interested in getting involved with campus sustainability, explore the ‘Get Involved’ section on the Sustainability page of Emerson’s website: https://emerson.edu/emerson-life/campus/sustainability/get-involved
- Additionally, I welcome you to contact me ava_tribe@emerson.edu for more information on leadership positions within Emerson Green Collective, creating your own sustainability subgroup, or just joining the organization and how to become a member.
- For staff and faculty interested in sustainability work, feel free to explore the ‘Get Involved’ section on the Sustainability page of Emerson’s website: https://emerson.edu/emerson-life/campus/sustainability/get-involved or the ‘Employee Guide’: https://emerson.edu/emerson-life/campus/sustainability/resources/employee-guide and contact sustainability@emerson.edu for more information and resources to getting involved.