Campus Environmental Campaign Spurs Student Activism Across 51 Countries

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact: Bryan Buchanan (202) 518-0044 x 14 May 3, 2012 [email protected]

Campus Environmental Campaign Spurs Student Activism Across 51 Countries Earth Day Network Announces Winners of MobilizeU Competition

WASHINGTON – Earth Day Network’s MobilizeU campaign – now one of the world’s largest environmental competitions for college students – galvanized students from 300 colleges and universities in 51 countries and 36 U.S. states to take part in a month of environmental action. The campaign’s message and call to action reached over six million students across six continents during the month-long competition that ended on April 29. Earth Day Network announced the winners today. Participating students generated over 300,000 “acts of green,” with the goal of achieving meaningful environmental change on campuses and in the surrounding communities. Actions ranged in scale and impact from  Western Kentucky University’s campaign to reduce plastic bag usage to India’s SV National Institute of Technology, Surat, establishing a solar-powered desalinization plant on campus. “Through MobilizeU, students across the world have demonstrated the true power of youth to create meaningful environmental change,” said Carra Cheslin, MobilizeU coordinator at Earth Day Network. “If youth across the world can achieve such monumental successes in only four weeks, then world leaders have no excuse for remaining inactive on protecting our fragile environment for current and future generations.” Earth Day Network will present these acts of green to world leaders at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in late June, as part of its A Billion Acts of Green® campaign. The winners are:

• 1^st place (Most Acts of Green): Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering – Tamil Nadu, India
• 2^nd Place: Bahcesehir University – Istanbul, Turkey
• Most Notable “Big Ticket Idea” Act of Green :  Universidad de Belgrano in collaboration with Road2Argentina Study Abroad  – Buenos Aires, Argentina; for their shared agreement to reduce the school’s carbon footprint by 30% in the next 5 years
• Most “Education and Awareness” Acts of Green: University of Massachusetts Amherst – Massachusetts, USA
• Most “Advocacy and Campaigns” Acts of Green : Virginia Highlands Community College – Virginia, USA
• Most “Campus or Community Greening” Acts of Green : Walla Walla University – Washington, USA

These universities will be awarded a series of prizes to further their campus sustainability initiatives courtesy of Buy Green.com®, in collaboration with Voltaic Systems, Eton and Joraform Composters. “Earth Day Network’s MobilizeU initiative harnessed the enthusiasm and energy of young people worldwide on protecting the environment and helped them raise awareness in creative ways,” said Ramesh Rajesh, MobilizeU Coordinator at the Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering in India. “I am very much humbled to have been a part of this amazing movement. Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering accepts this prize not just on behalf our Green Team on campus, but for all of India, and all my brothers and sisters from the 300 campuses across the world.” The diverse pool of MobilizeU participants is reflected in the winners. Notably, only one-third of the competition’s participants were from the U.S. And public, private and community colleges spanning four continents ultimately won the rigorous competition. Colleges in 36 U.S. states participated in the competition. Some of those schools, like the University of Tennessee at Martin, launched a green fund on campus with their student government. Others like the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute started construction on a biodigester to process the school’s food waste into a renewable form of energy. The MobilizeU campaign also promoted voter registration on participating campuses worldwide and succeeded in registering nearly 6,000 new voters in the U.S. and abroad. More than just a one-month competition, MobilizeU has created a massive network of student activists that will continue organizing for the environment. “MobilizeU is engaging and empowering a new generation of leaders to build and fast-forward the new green economy worldwide,” said Kathleen Rogers, president of Earth Day Network. To learn more about MobilizeU, including how to sign up as a student coordinator, go towww.earthday.org/MobilizeU. For more information about the winning schools and their acts of green, go to: archiveedn.wpengine.com/MobilizeU-winners. To see a photo series of campus actions from across the world, go to archiveedn.wpengine.com/mobilizeu-photos. For more information about A Billion Acts of Green®, go to earthday.org/take-action.

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Earth Day Network mobilizes over one billion people in 192 countries through year-round advocacy, education, public policy and consumer campaigns to protect the environment. archiveedn.wpengine.com