Hilary Boudet Corvallis Jul 27, 2015 16:33 pm

As part of a 2011 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency that aided in the creation of Energize Corvallis, the Corvallis Environmental Center developed and implemented the Campus and Communities Take Charge program with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging residents to adopt energy-saving behaviors. The Take Charge programs ask participants to choose 3-5 energy-saving behaviors and implement them for 1 month, tracking the participants attitudes and completion through surveys issued at the time of enrollment and time of completion.

Energize Corvallis contracted Oregon State Universitys Applied Research Methods class to evaluate the Take Charge programs via an analysis of the survey responses by participants from the pre- and post-survey instruments completed via the Take Charge website, interviews of past program participants, and through thematic analysis of case studies on successful environmental behavior-change programs.

The findings revealed that the Take Charge programs already engage in many of the best practices of similar programs but identified potential low-cost improvements that the program could foster to improve the completion rates of the program, resulting in a greater impact on sustainable behavior change.

Hilary Boudet
Assistant Professor
Oregon State University
United States