By: Sanjida Amin

Every day we make choices in our lives that affect the environment around us whether it be the food we intake or how we choose to get to work or school. Leading a sustainable lifestyle and showing how we are environmentally responsible is a significant step towards taking climate action.

The university hosted another Welcome Back Sustainability Challenge on the week of September 12^th – 16^th, 2022 wherein Brock students choose to take part in a sustainability challenge and steps in their daily lives to make small, sustainable changes. Brock University partnered with Blackstone energy services to engage the students in contributing to a sustainable campus and to easily integrate sustainable solutions into everyday life through an innovative and interactive app. To participate in the competition, students were motivated to track their daily sustainable habits over a period of five days through using the unique Blackstone Energy EcoBoss app.

The actions were simple and daily life hacks included using reusable water bottles, turning off lifes, turning off water while brushing, recycling, using public transportation, etc. The rules of the competition to participate were straight forward: Students were required to join challenge and log all sustainable actions made throughout the day on the Blackstone Energy app to accumulate points and to compete for prizes. Prizes were given to the students who placed in the top 10 by accumulating the most points included an Apple iPad, an Apple Watch, AirPods, $75 campus store gift cards and five $20 Campus Store gift cards for those who placed 6^th to 10^th, which were donated by the Campus Store. Those in the top five were placed in a draw for the three apple prizes and our winners are highlighted below. Students from a variety of disciplines and programs, ranging from business and education to science and the arts, participated in the competition and actively engaged throughout the event.

Through all of the actions logged into the app, total impact, which were estimated by the EcoBoss app, including the following:

• 6 thousand kg. in CO2 savings
• 1,073 kg. in waste diverted
• 1 thousand litres in water savings

The prime objective of the Welcome Back Sustainability challenge was to demonstrate and make students realize that how easy it is to contribute to the environment through impactful sustainable choices on a regular basis. Moving forward, there are plans to host more sustainability challenges competitions periodically to motivate the students to continue their eco-friendly actions to minimize the usage of natural resources, reduce carbon footprint and contribute to healthy eco-systems.