Communication Plan and Creative Brief:

Carbon Footprint of Agnes Scott College

Callie Pierce, Hannah Martin, Jordan Keesler, Sonia Patel

Agnes Scott College

 

 

 

Communication Program Plan

 

Name of Program:   “Save Now for a Greener Future”

Issue or Problem to be addressed: Carbon Emission Footprints of students at Agnes Scott College

Evidence of Need (why the program is being developed – you must provide data in this section):

 

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 Office of Sustainability has addressed issues related to carbon emissions by installing various systems at the institutional level such as solar panels and a Geothermal HVAC system (a closed circuit loop was developed to heat and cool the building using the Earth’s natural temperatures). These two systems are just the beginning for Agnes Scott’s carbon neutral goal by 2030. Climate change is a social and intellectual challenge of our time and to live this mission, we must lower our carbon footprints on campus. Although the Office of Sustainability is implementing systems and measures to reduce energy/electricity usage, our team would like to help educate students of how their actions can impact the community, and give them day to day strategies on how they can help lower Agnes’s carbon emissions.

Program Objective(s) (what is the ultimate goal of this program e.g. Reduce carbon emissions by X amount on campus):

 

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 affect their communities. The second component of this campaign is to introduce various actions and/or strategies that will allow students 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 usage.

Communication Objective(s) (what do you want people to do as the result of being exposed to your communication campaign):

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 footprinting 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. Our results would be tracked through data from the Office of Sustainability’s carbon footprinting system. Furthermore, through our communication campaign, we want to create a more positive attitude towards the idea of lowering carbon emissions. If we had IRB approval, we would design and distribute pre and post surveys to understand how our campaign made an impact on attitude.

 

Primary intended audiences (in priority order; include pertinent characteristics and rationale for focusing on this audience):

 

The main target population of this campaign would be residential students because they are the majority of students that contribute to the college’s carbon emissions. According to the 2017 Agnes Scott Factbook, residential students consist of 759 out of the total 937 students enrolled at Agnes. The largest sector that contributes to carbon emissions on campus is electricity usage. While students cannot control how institutionally ASC uses electricity through emergency lighting, AC in non-residential buildings, etc, students still have a large impact individually on electricity usage. Students may or may not be aware of how much electricity they use or how it contributes to their carbon footprint; however, our campaign will address carbon-reducing strategies with a focus towards raising awareness of the impact residential students on our carbon footprint as a campus.  We believe that this audience has the ability to change their behavioral practices towards the usage of electricity in their residence halls.

 

Our second primary intended audience will be commuter students at Agnes Scott College. Commuter students will be viewing our posts/challenges/infographics on various social media platforms, and also contribute to the campus carbon emissions when they are on campus. This campaign will give them strategies on how to reduce their electricity usage as well. However, commuter students are not as likely as residential students to attend our campaign event, since it will be taking place on Earth Day Sunday, April 22nd.

 

Secondary intended audiences (in priority order with rationale):

 

Faculty and staff at Agnes would be our secondary audiences because they have the ability to encourage students to participate in the campaign challenges and event. There is not a huge extent to which they are influencers, however, we would believe them to be a secondary audience if we launched this campaign for a longer time frame.

 

Market Research Plans (include pretesting):

 

• Design Surveys (pre-testing)
  • Include questions about:
    • Carbon footprint awareness
    • Use of electricity (power strips, refrigerator..etc)
    • On a scale of 1-10 how important is carbon emissions
    • What types of strategies would help them use less electricity
• Do market research on the residential students at Agnes Scott
  • Learn more about how much electricity each residence hall uses
    • Create a challenge between residence halls, to determine which hall uses the least electricity
    • Look at previous data on challenges completed between the residence halls to understand how usage varies by building based on student and institutional factors
• Post-Campaign Survey (random)
  • Include questions about:
    • how many people were aware of the campaign
    • Did the infographics help students grasp the importance of carbon emissions reductions
    • Whether the strategies provided by the campaign team helped

 

Messages for all Agnes Scott community members:

• Unplug electronics, including your power strip! Even when turned “off” they use electricity.
• Electricity is the largest sector of Agnes Scott’s carbon emissions. By reducing our electricity consumption, there will also be a cost reduction, and the money saved can be used to fix buildings/ things around campus. Another advantage of electricity usage reduction is the positive outcome it will have for the Agnes community in the future.
• Simple actions can make a difference in your carbon footprint which in turn affects the future of our planet

Messages for Residential Students:

• When possible switch off the lights. Use natural sunlight or common spaces to study.
• Keep blinds open in the cooler months to passively warm your room. Keep blinds or curtains closed in the hotter months to keep the sun from warming your room.
• Use a microwave or toaster oven when possible opposed to a traditional oven. They require less electricity to warm a smaller space.
• Let your leftovers cool before placing them in your fridge. It takes energy to keep a cool place cold when hot items are added.
• Remember to close the windows when using the AC system

Materials to be Developed/Adapted:

 

• Electronic Flyers
  • Flyers promoting our event. They will include the date, time, what we will be doing
  • They will include facts/ data about carbon emissions on our campus
  • Design wise, they will be simple but contain important relevant information pertaining to carbon emissions and our event
• Social Media Challenges
  • Use of Programming Board’s social media accounts to promote campaign event/ challenges leading up to Earth Day-Instagram, facebook, snapchat
• Short Infographics to post on social media
  • Infographics would have data/facts relevant to carbon emissions at Agnes
  • Include our “key promises/messages”
  • Include electricity saving strategies

 

 

Materials Distribution and Program Promotion:

 

• Promote the campaign event through ProBo’s Snapchat account
• Program Promotion through our individual social media platforms (Instagram, SnapChat)
• Use of screens to display our electronic flyers/infographics (avoid printing on paper, however, we could use recycled paper)
• ER, RA’s
• Irvine, Dean of Students, CSI

Resources Needed:

Potential Partner Organizations (college departments/office, clubs, etc.):


(Modified) Partnership Plan

Potential Partner Organizations (in priority order):  

1. Office of Sustainability
2. Student Affairs
   1. Center for Student Involvement
   2. Intramurals

Potential Partner Roles/Tasks:

1. Office of Sustainability
   1. Tasks include:
      1. Use of social media to promote activities-Instagram, facebook
      2. Instagram challenge week leading up to earth day with the hashtag “caught green handed”
      3. Participate in planned events to be available to answer questions
      4. Environmental Residents or staff members
         1. Environmental News Network as a means of hyping events and spreading information
         2. Equipping Environmental Residents information to give to residents in halls

 

Student Affairs

• Encourage involvement via email, social media, and presence at events
• Encourage participation of RA’s through correspondence to Residence Life
• Encourage participation of CSI and Intramurals

 

Center for Student Involvement

• Use of social media to promote activities-Instagram, facebook, snapchat, twitter
  • i.e. through Programming Board and/or CSI accounts
  • Instagram challenge week leading up to earth day with #caughtgreenhanded

• Fund a succulent, spring planting, event but to receive plants, students must sign a pledge to engage in an activity to lower energy consumption in the dorm halls
  • “Caught Green Handed” –using hands as signatures with paint
  • When giving out plants include flyer for ways to conserve energy

Intramurals

• Hold an event outside to encourage students to be outside
  • partner with SAAC to have athletes involved
  • i.e. Kickball, badminton, archery  

Benefits to Partners of Participation in Program:

Office of Sustainability

• reduction of student energy use  

Student Affairs

• student engagement
• vibrant student life

 

Other Considerations (such as your organization’s constraints or policies):

• Time constraints to meet with us, to program events, or attend events.
• Lack of funding to support our programming ideas
• Probo being unable to sponsor events unless approved by them or having their logo on information
• Flyer posting policies- must seek approval to post and can only post in certain areas
• Reserving a space as a non-student organization, EMT process

 

Steps Planned to Approach and Engage Potential Partners:

• Email each potential partner
  • Sustainability, Dean of Students, CC, LeAnna Casey
  • In each email include: plan, expected results with a timeline for completion, expected contribution, possible times to meet to discuss if they have questions, a point of contact person in the group, expected benefits for each partner
    • Additionally, each email will include a statement asking what each partner would need for this project to succeed to open discussion of flexibility
    • Follow up email would include results and regards for their participation

Mechanisms for Communicating/Working Together:

• Email between team and partners
• GroupMe for team members
• Meeting in person individually with partners or together if possible
  
  
  *Evaluation plan will be submitted separately.

 

Strategy Statement/Creative Brief Template

*This is the document you would provide to your artists/graphic designers/web designers/film producers…

 

1. Intended audiences (Whom do you want to reach with your communication?) Be specific.

For our campaign, we intend for our audience to be currently enrolled students at the prestigious women’s college, Agnes Scott. We will primarily focus our communications on the residential students since these students contribute the most carbon emissions on campus. We still want to reach out to commuter students to lower their proportion of carbon emission production on campus as well, however, since our main event will be on a weekend we do not expect as many commuters to participate.

 

2. Objectives (What do you want your intended audiences to do after they hear, watch, or experience this communication?)

The objectives of our campaign are to teach students about the importance of lowering our amount of carbon emissions produced on campus. We also want to motivate students to begin thinking/ implementing ways to lower our campus’ and individual carbon footprints. We want to encourage students to get excited and understand the significance of  Agnes Scott’s goal to be carbon neutral by 2030 and provide ways for students to help our campus succeed in this goal.

 

3. Obstacles (What beliefs, cultural practices, peer pressure, misinformation, etc. stand between your audience and the desired objective?)

There are a few obstacles standing between our audience and our objectives. Lack of convenience or knowledge, negative attitudes, and laziness may deter people away which results in another obstacle of getting students to take part in our campaign.  Some students may prefer to sleep with a lamp or TV on. For others this may be the first time not paying for electricity causing them to feel as if they can use as much electricity as they want without having the economic burden. Also students often spend time studying during late hours and charge electronic devices overnight due to their busy day time schedules. These can be hard habits to change or may be inconvenient for students making it difficult to reach our desired objectives.

 

4. Key Promise (Select one single promise/benefit that the audience will experience upon hearing, seeing, or reading the objectives you’ve set?)

Students will learn and develop ways to reduce their individual carbon footprints resulting in lowering the campus’ carbon footprint as a whole.

 

5. Support Statements/Reasons Why (Include the reasons the key promise/benefit outweighs the obstacles and the reasons what you’re promising or promoting is beneficial. These often become the messages.)

By lowering our individual and campus carbon footprints by just 2%, we will be helping our campus move towards becoming climate neutral by 2030 and also our planet by improving air quality and fighting back against climate change by saving now for a greener future.

 

6. Tone (What feeling or personality should your communication have? Should it be authoritative, light, emotional…? Choose a tone.)

The tone of our campaign is going to be positive, enthusiastic, and rallying to get students involved with our campus’ carbon emissions through providing infographics, tips, and tricks attached to plants, and by promoting students to take a pledge. We want the focus to be on how much of an impact their actions can make on our campus.

 

7. Media (What channels will the communication use, or what form will the communication take? Television? Radio? Newspaper? Internet? Poster? Point-of-purchase? Flyer? All of the above?)

We are going to use social media applications, such as Snapchat and Instagram, flyers and screen displays as our channels of communications. Our team will post things such as electronic flyers, challenges, and short infographics. By using social media and screen displays as channels, we will cut down on paper consumption which helps to us to be sustainable as well as by using recycled paper for flyers to hang around campus.

 

8. Openings (What opportunities (times and places) exist for reaching your audience?)

We will be working with the Center for Sustainability and other student organizations on campus to students involved during the week prior and on Earth Day, April 22 to promote ways to reduce carbon emissions on campus.  

 

9. Creative Considerations (Anything else the creative people should know? Will it be in more than one language? Should they make sure that all nationalities are represented? What should the people look like in the materials – if people are depicted? Are there particular colors they should use or avoid? Etc.)

Our slogan is “Save Now for a Greener Future” therefore we would like the colors to be green, white, and tie in the Agnes Scott signature purple. Also we are wanting to include both English and Spanish on our campaign materials. For a logo we are thinking something along the lines of a Scottie dog with a carbon “paw print” surrounded with animated people from around the world. Agnes Scott prides itself on being a diverse and inclusive campus therefore, we would like our campaign to also uphold the same values by incorporating a wide range of bodies, languages, and nationalities in the materials.

 

Citations:

The Pink Book (Making Health Communications Programs Work). (2004). Washington, DC: National Institutes of 

     Health.

Institutional Research. (n.d.). Retrieved March 22, 2018, from https://www.agnesscott.edu/institutionalresearch/fact-

     book.html

 

(May 2018)