The Impact of Collective Action

Adelman says this awareness is key: Ecolympics makes such an impact because so many people  rally behind it. 

“Ecolympics is not just a fun competition—it really does help us get to carbon neutrality,” Adelman explains. “It might not seem like a big deal to have your lights off, or not be running water when you're brushing your teeth, but all of those resources are in our greenhouse gas inventory. And the less we use, the lower that is.”

The Office of Energy and Sustainability can see an immediate effect from these actions. After the culmination of this year’s competition, the winning residential halls, Firelands Apartment Building and Keep Cottage, saw (respectively) a 31 percent decrease in electricity usage as well as a 31 percent decrease in water usage. Between all participants, we saw an overall reduction of 31,948 kWh of electricity and 26,240 gallons of water.

Adelman also sees that Ecolympics causes participants to reflect on their behavior patterns, and consider making more permanent, long-term changes.

“We can track resource use before and after Ecolympics, and it doesn't stay as low as during the competition, but it stays low,” she says. 

To keep the spirit of sustainability alive year-round beyond Ecolympics, Adelman implemented the position of EcoRepresentatives, or EcoReps, in the 2023–24 academic year. 

“[An EcoRep is] like a green RA, or a green ambassador,” she explains. “They’re meant to provide peer-to-peer support and interactions between students on sustainability topics.”

EcoReps host sustainability awareness events, such as a recent trivia night at Slow Train Cafe, or an “Eco Jeopardy” last semester. They also monitor buildings to make sure recycling and composting is being done correctly. 

“If it's not, we do targeted outreach to those buildings with tabling events, emails, or fun recycling games,” Adelman notes.

One project that the EcoReps have been involved with recently is analyzing the water usage per person in each dorm. They found that some buildings used significantly more water than others. They researched infrastructure, such as checking to see if buildings had different toilets or shower heads. They also took into account that certain buildings had hoses to water gardens, and thus didn’t include them in their statistics. 

Even after considering those factors, the EcoReps discovered that Barrows Hall was using up to three times as much water as those on the lowest end of the spectrum. In response, Adelman and her student employees worked with a psychology class to create targeted posters explaining that their water usage was among the highest of their peers. 

“It made a huge difference,” Adelman says. “Now [Barrows] is one of the lowest users.”

Since the program has gained momentum, the results have been encouraging, with EcoReps also working with Residence Life area coordinators—Meredith Bischoff and Robbie Maggard—and RAs to ensure year-round sustainable habits.

“This year we worked with the area coordinators and it's going great. They've been fantastic, the RAs are really engaged, they're having a lot more events together.  All of these Ecolympics events were a collaboration between the EcoReps and RAs.”

Adelman and OES work with students in many ways in addition to EcoReps and Ecolympics. For example, Adelman says she’s crossed paths with hundreds of students in the last three years, either as her employees or through class projects. She is happy to have served as a reference for graduates who have gone on to pursue sustainability-focused careers.

“It's really cool to see the impact of the work students can experience or the projects they can experience on campus, and how that translates into what they want to do with their life,” Adelman says. “I feel like in a lot of schools, they might not necessarily have that level of exposure [to this kind of work]. We’re not just impacting Oberlin, but impacting the rest of the world.”

Want to get more involved with sustainability at Oberlin? Reach out to sustainability@oberlin.edu or visit the OES webpage to learn more.