hal224’s Site

This is Hanyi’s blog 3.

1.List the top 20 questions your team needs to answer to advance the venture forward. Categorize the questions if necessary.

1. What is the ultimate goal?

2. What is the sustainability team expecting from students?

3 How can we get the campus community involved?

4 How can we diminish the impact of Covid and successfully build networks?

5 How can we make this project prominent even to impact other universities?

6 How can we track our outcome after launching the program?

7 What are the new ways to improve if we do not achieve the expecting goal?

8 How can we establish the needed networks?

9 What networks are needed?

10 What resources are needed?

11 How can we make the promotions?

12 How optimistic is Lehigh dining about being able to open for in-person dining in the first half of the semester.

13 Is Lehigh dining in a place where they could help with a soft launch?

14 What staff members will be using the website?

15 How soon after putting up the posters do we want to introduce the website? Will it be at the same time, or are we allowing students to get adjusted to the posters before actually seeing the color system?

16 Should we only introduce the color system for the 60 recipes we looked at?

17 Where exactly are we putting the color symbol?

18 How can we make our symbol?

19 Will the website be ready in time?

20 How can we make our website more popular?

 

2.Develop and Visualize the Theory of Change (Logic Model) for your venture.

 

Program:   _____Food Carbon Footprint________________ Logic Model

Situation:

Inputs		Outputs			Outcomes — Impact
		Activities	Participation		Short	Medium	Long
Research Codes Networks Partners money(if needed) Efforts Mathematical model		Establish a website Connecting with Lehigh dining hall staff Creating a calculator or algorithm to provide the information of carbon emissions footprint make videos for promotion take some surveys and use the survey to improve our plan	Dining hall staff Lehigh students and faculty who eat in the dining hall Students and faculty from other universities		A large portion of students know this project and can be positively involved, which means they keep this idea in mind and will consciously contribute by ordering food containing less carbon emission. More Lehigh students can use our website, and some students would check our website before ordering any food.	Lehigh community can reduce overall carbon emission.  The dining hall will produce less food containing large carbon emissions.		Our project’s ultimate goal is to make this a national, open-source model for other colleges/universities to use. So we are trying to make the idea and implementation to be easily repeated. Lehigh can save money and improve the environmental condition.

 

 

Assumptions 1 It is difficult to guarantee that most students will insist on choosing foods with fewer carbon emissions for a long time. So it is necessary to figure out ways to keep tracking and find new ways to improve. 2 Encouraging students to choose alternatives for food with high carbon emissions would reduce quantitative overall carbon emission. 3 After promotion and post of our videos, more students can be involved		External Factors 1  Some sources reinforce the consumption of high-carbon-emission food. For example, some people prefer to eat those foods and are not willing to change their diet. 2 Lehigh dining hall staff (they might not approve the plan because their first priority is to make 3 students’ persistence

 

 

3.Develop an M&E plan for your venture.

Clearly list all assumptions.

Identify short-term and long-term success metrics.

(Optional) identify specific methods to measure the metrics.

 

M&E plan

Short -term metrics

 

The percentage of people who are satisfied with the action of the project.

The number of students who get involved in this program.

Lehigh dining hall staff

reduction of the order of high-carbon-emission food in a short time

 

Specific methods

if the high-carbon-emission food order like hamburgers drops 5%, we can’t simply assume it is effective unless we can see a constant reduction because the order varies slightly every month. The dining hall has records of food ordering, so we can simply achieve this.

For the number of students involved, we have to check the views of our website. If the views can increase constantly, it is effective.

 

Long-term metrics

 

The overall reduction of carbon emissions on campus

Website views and satisfaction

Percentage of students using the website

The trend of various food sales records in the dining hall

Can our model be easily used by other universities and colleges?

 

Specific methods

As we did in the short term, we will view and monitor the records of the dining hall’s order to keep track of that. The only difference is that we are going to reduce the carbon emissions first and then keep them stable.

We will make this project used by other universities if possible and see if they can easily use it.

 

 

Here is Hangyi’s blog.

 

For each of the four steps of the natural step framework (awareness and vision, baseline analysis, creative solutions, decide on priorities), describe precisely how you will approach the step for your project.

• Awareness/vision: This portion of the project has already been addressed by previous participants. To summarize, students identified the problem of carbon emissions produced by food production and chose to attack this problem first on the Lehigh campus. Lehigh’s dining halls like Rathbone and Lower Court produce a large amount of food daily and have not taken into consideration the toll the food production has on the environment. We have become more aware of the types of food that have a large carbon footprint and want to decrease the demand for them as quickly as possible by working with the dining hall.
• Baseline Analysis: We recognize that the problem of a large carbon footprint must be addressed, but there are many obstacles. Primarily, working with the dining hall was expected to be complicated. Their first priority is producing and serving food to Lehigh students, not decreasing the environmental impacts. Also, as college students, we must ask if providing information to students will even create an impact and what is the most efficient way of delivering this information. Additionally, another hard problem would be to find out a way to get students to start using our webpage.
• Creative Solutions: A solution has already been agreed upon; this solution is to create a program in which dining hall employees can input the ingredients of food, and the output will give the food a rating. The rating system is green, yellow, and red to indicate the carbon footprint of the food. A sticker with the corresponding color will be placed on the card in front of the food to indicate to students the carbon footprint. We could also attach the idea to make an app or a webpage. A student might have more than one choice of lunch food. Before deciding which one to take, he or she could type all the food they want into the App. The App could operate an algorithm to give the best choice of diet. At the same time, it can not only produce relatively lower carbon emissions but also provide more energy and balancing diet. The app could also make some suggestions or find alternatives for high-carbon-emission food. Many students nowadays are really having difficulty deciding what to take for lunch because there are so many options. That’s another reason we think the App would be popular. The App can also be developed to save the search records and leverage the collected data to upgrade. The app would also have accompanied knowledge on environmental carbon emission or effect on Calorie to encourage students to make changes. There would also be some fun facts to attract students’ interests.

 

• Decide on Priorities: Our current priority is to be in communication with the dining hall. We need to produce a schedule, so we can start a soft launch. If we start to spread awareness about the project and then the project falls through because the dining hall was not clear about their timeline, the project will be forgotten about and have a smaller impact. So, we must collaborate with the dining hall to decide a firm timeline for the launch. At the same time, we are also building the website and doing many preparations for the launch of the project.

 

Identify the three most important metrics of success for each of the three pillars of sustainability (environmental stewardship, social equity, and economic prosperity) for your project?

• Environmental Stewardship: 

1. An important metric of success for our project is decreased demand for high carbon footprint food in Lehigh dining halls.
2. Hopefully, this will lead to a decreased supply of these high carbon footprint foods.
3. After the supply of these foods has decreased, Lehigh dining halls will have decreased their production of food waste and greenhouse gas emissions from food production.

• Social equity:

1. By bringing awareness to food with high carbon footprints, students will be more likely to choose low carbon footprint foods, which are typically more whole foods. This gives every student an equal opportunity to choose more health conscientious foods.
2. Decreasing Lehigh’s carbon footprint, in general, contributes to decreased greenhouse gas emissions, which have universal environmental benefits even if it is on a small scale.
3. If we finally set up a model and achieve our goal successfully, it can be easily used by other colleges and universities, which would then make a huge impact, and more people can be beneficial.
4. This project will be successful based on the employees of Lehigh dining halls and if they collaborate and contribute to aiding the progress of the project.

• Economic Prosperity:

1. More of Lehigh’s food production budget could be tunneled into low carbon footprint foods and providing more whole foods.
2. Students may be more likely to take what food they know they need, which would decrease food waste outside of the dining halls.
3. The dining halls will produce a more sustainable amount of food to decrease food waste in dining halls. 
4. The dining halls can finally save money by producing food that contains less carbon emission because these kinds of food usually cost less than the food that contains more Calories or carbon emissions.
5. Our App might end up getting profit with more users.

 

Review various strategies for moving towards a circular economy (https://www.ceguide.org/Strategies-and-examples). As a team, review these different strategies (except the ones under finance) and identify five strategies that are relevant to your project. For each strategy, briefly explain how you might apply that strategy.

1. Digitization and virtualization: Lehigh’s dining halls have an online menu that can also include rankings of the food with a dot with the corresponding color or highlighting the menu item. The food carbon footprint is intangible in reality, but we are going to visualize it by collecting data on carbon emissions and making tangible diets for students to reduce environmental pollution.
2. Design for maintainability: This would apply to the program we plan to create. We plan to make it as user friendly as possible so current and future dining hall employees can use it with ease. 
3. Cradle to Cradle: In this project, our mission is not limited to decreasing carbon emission; we are also going to make students’ living healthy by having a diet containing fewer calories and is more qualified. Also, we are trying to make this idea be used by other colleges.
4. Regenerative design: The ultimate goal of our project is to make this a national, open-source model for other colleges/universities to use. So we are trying to make the idea and implementation to be easily repeated. 
5. Six Sigma: We can use the “Six Sigma” strategy to help us make fewer mistakes, and then less waste will be generated.

This is Hangyi’s first blog. Today’s topic is  CINQ 388.

1 Why did you join this program (motivation, prior interests)?

When I first received the emails from CSIF a long time ago, I was attracted by the program’s concept. It seems like a tough process, but I think it’s really rewarding. The word ‘impact’ is really unique and special to me. People are in contact with people or things around them all the time. And such a positive ‘impact’ that we could bring to others makes me feel great. In today’s fast-developing society, there are many unnecessary wastes and all kinds of garbage all over the world every day. As a member of this society, we are responsible for paying attention to and solving such problems. It helps us survive better.

Additionally, I am statistics major. Because statistics is a highly applied subject, everyone in this major is supposed to do many practical projects at ordinary times to train yourself to maintain excellence at the academic level and do practical projects, so I also think this is a good opportunity. Moreover, I think this is an exciting thing to find the law and essence of real things. And I am really excited to explore the principles behind some complex data and visualize them. These principles can really help us solve real-world problems and make our behavior more effective. And the CSIF program Provides me with the best way to explore these. I can actually improve my academic skills while participating in protecting the environment and promoting sustainable development. My major is so closely related to these applications.

 

2 How do you envision this course making you a better student and professional?

The program a good opportunity to show and exercise talents. This is also a platform for us to make some good friends and to have a clearer understanding of our abilities every time we solve problems. It could help us make up for our own shortcomings, learn from others’ strengths, and set our life goals. In this project, I can apply the knowledge of data analysis that I learned in math class. In the classroom, The knowledge we learn is only in the basics, and it is a more difficult level to apply these skills. This is why I want to challenge myself and get more familiar with the application by practicing.

 

3 In my opinion, the most important thing for any recycling process to get started is to check if the mattresses are reusable and if they can be donated to someone in need.

Sorting the discarded mattresses according to the different materials and the reasons why people discard them would be the first step. There are three most common mattress materials people use：innerspring mattresses, memory foam mattresses, and hybrid innerspring-foam mattresses. On average, mattresses should be replaced every 8 years. However, different types of mattresses tend to last at different times. For instance, hybrid innerspring-foam mattresses need to be replaced sooner, at around 6 years. Innerspring mattresses can last up to 10 years,  while memory foam can last up to 15 years. We can categorize the mattresses first and check if their usage time exceeds our expected time. If it did, we could assume it is no longer usable and, since then, can not be reused.

And some people might discard the mattresses because the old one is no longer usable, while others might just have to move house and can not carry on the mattress. If we could request the old user to explain why they discord the mattresses before collecting them, it would save lots of time and human resources to check the quality of the mattress.

After the first step of categorizing all the mattresses, the remaining undetermined mattresses should be checked, and the usable ones can be donated and reused. There are 3 ways to donate the mattress. The most useful way is to find an organization or charity to donate the mattress. It is also a good choice to post dimensions and pictures online to publicize or place flyers on campus.

The remaining mattress would then be sent to the factory to be decomposite. The textile will be peeled and reused in the textile industry.

Generally, innerspring mattresses are the most popular. The top layer of innerspring mattresses consists of fabric padding that is filled with fibers or foam. The fibers could be turned to carpet underlayment. The spring tends to wear out fast and is easy to age that could rarely be reused. I will melt the spring, and the steel would finally go to a local scrap metal dealership. Wooden frame and fibers can be burned as an alternative fuel source. As for the memory foam mattresses, foam is relatively harder to reuse or sell. It is a better idea to clean and reshape them. They are really useful in our daily life.

 

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