Join the #CleanEnergyU Conversation with Students and Climate Leaders

The campuses leading Chevrolet’s Clean Energy Campus Campaign originally convened the #CleanEnergyU dialogue. As we explored in an earlier series of GBIG blogs, these academic leaders were the first to access a new source of carbon capital to help accelerate their clean energy leadership.

Check out their individual stories to see how they qualified for this new carbon funding to accelerate their clean energy performances: Valencia College Ball State University, Portland State University, Spelman College, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, Boston University, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Grand Valley State University, and Southern Oregon University.

Tweeting your #CleanEnergyU Thoughts

As the #cleanenergyu conversation again goes live, students are welcome to post their messages to #CleanEnergyU in response to two new key questions this Earth Month:

What’s your vision for a clean-energy future by 2025? What does a clean-energy future matter to you?
What actions are you taking now to lead toward that goal?

Whether it’s a photo tweeted of a student holding a sign with their insights or a 140-character statement, students and clean energy leaders are all encouraged to voice their opinion!

Tweetathon on April 22

In addition to ongoing conversation on Twitter, everyone is also invited to join a live Tweetathon on April 22 to meet clean energy experts and ask them how to best achieve the clean energy future students most want to see.

There’s an exciting line up of experts joining the #cleanenergyu tweetathon ranging from clean energy entrepreneurs and visionaries to leaders challenging campuses to invest in more clean energy and divest out of fossil fuels.

These climate experts will engage in conversations from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. ET on April 22. Participants can tweet their question in advance or on the day of the chat to a particular expert by using both the #CleanEnergyU hashtag and tagging the speaker’s handle (below).

12 ET/9PT: Mark Kenber, CEO of Climate Group, @MarkKenber
1 ET/10 PT: David Tulauskas, Sustainability Director of General Motors, @DavidTulauskas; Joel Makower, Chairman, GreenBiz, @makower; Snehal Desai, Global Director, Dow Water & Process Solutions, @SneDesai
2 ET/11PT: Tony Cortese, Co-President, Intentional Endowment Network, @TonyCSN; George Dyer, Co-President, Intentional Endowment Network, @georgesdyer; Eban Goodstein, Director, Center for Environment and Policy, Bard College, @BardMBA; Anastasia Schemkes, Student Coalition Campaign Representative, Sierra Club, @sierrastudent #SiezeTheGrid

Posting along side the #cleanenergyu conversation, we will also continue our #cleanenergyu series of blogs, drawing upon insights from many of these clean energy leaders and campuses — from the Sierra Club, Bard College and RIT to clean energy visionaries such as Mark Kenber and Snehal Desai – again here on GBIG’s Insight blog.

So stay tuned and share your questions and insights with us all via #cleanenergyu!

#CleanEnergyU Post-It Wall Conversations

Several campuses across the country will also enable their students to post their responses to the two #cleanenergyu questions via post-it walls or chalkboards in central gathering places in their facilities throughout Earth Month.

These campuses are then clustering students’ vision and action ideas to discover where their common priorities lie – and invite further insights such as whether the actions they take are enough to deliver on their 2025 vision for a clean-energy future?

Campuses’ visions – and their insights as they compare this to the actions they prioritized – make to intriguing reading: Valencia College will be sharing what they learned from their #cleanenergyu 2025 post-it wall in our next Insight blog this week!

If you are interested in building your own #CleanEnergyU post-it wall at your campus or organization during Earth Week, here are some tips:

Post responses using different colored post-it notes or chalk to distinguish “vision” posts and “action” posts. One thought per sticky note is best for clustering.
Ask students to take selfies with their note and tweet it to #CleanEnergyU.
Afterward, invite students to cluster these action and vision notes by topic to discover where their strongest priority areas lie to move forward.
Host a discussion with students about whether their vison and action ideas align and where their campus can best lead.
Share photos of your clustered ideas map and tweet it to #CleanEnergyU.

Everyone can take part in the #CleanEnergyU conversation by posting their ideas to Twitter via #CleanEnergyU; engaging in a live Tweetathon; or creating a #CleanEnergyU wall as part of their Earth Month activities. Students are welcome to also cross-post to #SeizeTheGrid to reach other students active with the Sierra Club networks in this space.

So as we all prepare to engage our communities during Earth Week, feel free to take advantage of these #cleanenergyu dialogue platforms.

We look forward to you joining the #cleanenergyu dialogue again this Earth Month!