Zero Waste McMaster is a club that is focused on promoting sustainable and accessible low waste living. In 2020, Zero Waste McMaster began its partnership with free Ecosia, a search engine that donates its ad revenue to reforestation projects across the globe. For every 45 searches, approximately 1 tree is planted. Ecosia has planted over 160 million trees and has approximately 200 million users. To date, McMaster students’ collective search count on personal devices has reached over 45,000 and consequently over 1,000 trees planted.
With the long-term goal for McMaster to adopt Ecosia as the default search engine on all university computers, Zero Waste McMaster is working with campus stakeholders to understand barriers and opportunities to pilot the installation and use and provide feedback along the way. In October 2022, Zero Waste McMaster collaborated with the McMaster Students Union (MSU) to pilot Ecosia on 20+ staff computers, and the pilot is currently underway.
Students who take on this project will be working with community project champions and student leaders from Zero Waste McMaster to prepare an advocacy plan complete with clear, concise, and compelling communications to engage other departments in an Ecosia pilot.
While the project is open to creativity, SUSTAIN 2SS3 students can expect to create and disseminate information through email, memo, and presentation to department and faculty leaders and leadership teams. Students will develop communication strategies that advocate for the importance of Ecosia to users, and gain community feedback to learn more about effective implementation strategies. This project provides an opportunity for SUSTAIN 2SS3 students to extend their course experience to go above and beyond by implementing their advocacy plan and materials and successfully launch the next Ecosia pilot at McMaster, paving the way for sustainable change on an institutional level by setting up McMaster University as the first Canadian university to make the switch to Ecosia.
Community Project Champion(s):
- Paris Liu, Co-President, Zero Waste McMaster
- Tina Wu, Vice President of Projects, Zero Waste McMaster
- Nelly Okwu-wolu, Project Team Executive, Zero Waste McMaster
- Richard Godsmark, Deputy Chief Technology Officer and Director, IT Strategy & Services
- Kate Whalen, Associate Director, Academic Sustainability Programs