Welcome to the Penn Sustainability Challenge 2020 | Open to all majors and years!
The 3-week challenge officially kicked off on October 25, 2020 and ended on November 11, 2020.
Win prizes worth $5000 and help save the planet.
Announcements
The Penn Sustainability Challenge 2020 has officially concluded - congratulations to all the winners and participants!
Subscribe to EDAB’s newsletter to stay updated on recruitment, new initiatives, and other exciting ways you can get involved with Penn Engineering and the wider Penn community. For questions, feel free to reach out via email (vsumac@seas.upenn.edu / masuarez@seas.upenn.edu / akunal@seas.upenn.edu)
Winners (by category)
Academic
Alan Chan, Matt Mangine, Jake Becker, Sae Joon Cheon
We are the Green Beans, and our solution revolves around the idea of threading sustainability throughout the Penn student journey, from before, to during, to after they leave. We begin with the LSAP module and NSO programming increasing student awareness, which leads to new courses and adjusted core curricula growing student knowledge, to finally career services and career fairs encouraging students to pursue career opportunities involving sustainability, resolving pressing environmental issues and ultimately, creating a Greener Tomorrow.
Operations and Utilities
Nidhi Ohri, Zachary Place
Hi there! We are Nidhi and Zac, and we are both sophomores majoring in Chemical Engineering. During our time as lab partners in freshman year, we observed drastic water usage when our class cleaned labware. With this issue and considering Green Labs @ Penn, our project involves the implementation of lab-grade faucet aerators to reduce water flow rate, and the installation of water meters to track the water saving progress in the undergraduate Chem labs. We also aim to involve undergraduate lab students to resonate with our sustainability mission and make it their own. Eventually, we hope to scale this initiative across Penn!
Physical Environment
Caroline Leng, Daia Ernst
To enhance the sustainable landscape design of Penn’s campus, we propose a 50% conversion of campus green spaces into biodiverse “living lawns” by 2024. These meadows will feature a mix of native, drought-resistant grasses and wildflowers which will reduce water consumption, increase campus biodiversity, and minimize bio-waste produced by traditional lawn care. Our biodiverse meadows are inspired by recent projects undertaken at Cambridge University and Trinity College Dublin, where they have provided a unique combination of environmental and student benefits while enhancing campus aesthetics. We believe this proposal complements Penn’s existing initiatives and translates well into a unified design language.
Purchasing and Transportation
Alice Cochrane, Brooke Lange, Pryce Davies, Ana Izecksohn
Every year during move-out in May, up to 100,000 lbs of waste is left behind by students. The current response to this enormous amount of waste is the PennMOVES program, which asks students to leave unwanted items in collection bins for donation to Goodwill. Whilst this program diverts waste from landfill, this large waste stream is a missed opportunity to address inequity and demand for low-cost sustainable goods amongst our own students. We therefore propose an intervention and expansion of the current PennMOVES program that would divert waste from landfill, address the needs of students, and create a circular economy on campus. Our solution would build off of the existing PennMOVES collection structure with two additional steps: firstly, following the collection, items will be put aside for First Generation Low Income (FGLI) and highly aided students. This will ease some of the financial burden of furnishing residences, and help all Penn students create an environment in which they can succeed. Secondly, with the remainder of the collected items we would introduce an on-campus pop-up fair, where all students would be welcome to come and buy these secondhand items at low prices. We believe our system will be a feasible and intersectional solution to Penn’s waste problem.
Introduction
Sustainability has been a topic of discussion which is extremely important for everyone’s future well-being. The concept of sustainability refers to meeting our current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. If we do not embrace the diversity of life on Earth and its ecosystems, our planet will not sustain us for much longer. College campuses do not exist by themselves, and are hence part of a larger ecosystem. As part of such, it is our responsibility as college students to make this relationship as harmonious as possible. Our choices regarding food, energy, materials, and wastes have a direct impact on the environment around us.
The Challenge
Your team is responsible for creating a pitch deck proposal (max. 11 slides) to help improve overall sustainability on Penn’s Campus for one of the following categories:
Academic
Utilities and Operations
Physical Environment
Purchasing and Transportation
Find more details about each of these categories in the Sustainability Challenge Handbook linked below. It is expected for you to explore both quantitative and qualitative information when guiding your proposals. It is important to keep in mind that these proposals should be feasible and a more detailed rubric about the scoring will be shared after the team is registered. You may also use other outside resources beyond what is provided in the handbook.
Rules and Prizes
Prizes include $5000 worth of cash awards, coaching from the Green Team for potential implementation and further funding, recognition by Penn Engineering and other campus publications/media, and more! More details coming soon.
Grand Prize (4 teams; 1 per category)
$1250 cash award + recognition by campus publication and media + coaching by the Green Team for potential implementation and Green Fund grant (up to $30,000) + certificates + more!
Timeline
Round 1 Registration (October 25) - Registration Form (recommended deadline is 10/19)
Team Confirmation and Challenge Declaration (October 30) - Team Form (one member per team) or Random Team Form (to be paired up with someone random)
Office Hours (Week of November 2)
Proposal Submission (November 12)
Finalists Announced (November 15)
Finalist Pitches (November 21)
Resources
Slack Group for announcements, discussions, Q&A’s, team formation, etc. [direct invites to registered participants starting 10/19]
Challenge Handbook [sent out to registered participants starting 10/19]
Green Team Resources
Green Team Official Website
Frequently Asked Questions
Who can participate in this challenge?
Any current student (undergraduate or graduate) across ay school at Penn is eligible to submit their proposal and be considered for the challenge. Please note that you must currently be enrolled as a Penn Student.
Do I need to have a team to be a part of the challenge?
No! There can be up to 4 people on a team, and if you are looking to form a team make sure to check out the Team Formation channel in the slack.
Do all my team members have to fill out the form or is only one person necessary?
Please have everyone in your team fill out the form. The team declaration form will be available later and due on October 30th.
Will we be put in a random team if we don't have four members?
No! During the first week from Oct 19- Oct 25 there is a team formation period. All participants will join a Slack workspace, and you can introduce yourself and find a team there. We will not be making random teams but will provide a platform for you to meet other undergrads and grads to work with.
Are the speaker series mandatory to attend?
Although the speaker events are not mandatory, they are highly recommend and will be extremely helpful with brainstorming ideas as you choose one of the four challenges to tackle.
Can I use information past the resources given in the Challenge Handbook?
Yes, you may use other resources.
Are there monetary restrictions that we need to keep in mind?
More information about the guidelines will be released in the Challenge handbook starting October 19th. It is important that the solutions are feasible and reasonable as well (more details on the rubric will be shared soon).
Will late submissions be considered?
To be fair to all participants, we will not be accepting any late submissions.
Who do I contact if I have any questions?
Send an email to pennsustainability2020@gmail.com, or reach out directly to an EDAB member (vsumac@seas.upenn.edu / masuarez@seas.upenn.edu / akunal@seas.upenn.edu).