Post-secondary contest looks for student teams to reduce their campus water-use footprint
With a continuing global call to conserve and consume water wisely, the Canadian Institute of Plumbing & Heating (CIPH) is challenging Canadian college and university students to look closer to home with a meaningful, real-world competition.
The thrust of the program is to develop an action plan for teams to decrease their school’s water-use footprint and change the way students, faculty and staff think about their water habits. There is no limit on team size and judging will be managed by an experienced committee selected through members of the CIPH. Teams can enter at Water Wise.
“We continue to motivate some of the country’s most innovative, forward-thinking students to participate and do their part in thinking about the importance of water use,” says Ralph Suppa, CIPH’s president and general manager. “Fresh water is often taken for granted, especially here in Canada where the supply might seem endless. The fact is, that’s not the case at all and we need to respect this critical natural resource.”
Now in its third year and part of the CIPH CareerTap program, the two-month challenge asks students from all disciplines – including engineering, business, marketing, urban planning and environmental studies, for example – to develop and present (via online submissions) a viable plan to reduce the water-use footprint at their school in an economical, manageable and user-friendly manner. The Water Wise program can be executed in the first or second semesters of the 2015-16 school year.
Ideally, plans will include a practical, detailed and technical approach, a creative manner to execute (through implementation and/or marketing), as well as a thought toward balanced financial implications (initial costs and potential savings). The challenge, where teams can participate in either semester (but only one) runs from Oct. 15-Dec. 15, 2015 and Jan. 1-Feb. 28, 2016, with winners announced on World Plumbing Day (March 11, 2016).
Besides the honest motivation to create environmental value for their home away from home, individual and team benefits include:
- Working with – and learning from – CIPH Mentors through the association’s Young Executive Society
- Participation incentives, including $50 Visa gift cards (upon delivery of the presentation for the first 100 students)
- Inclusion in all promotional outreach through CIPH
- Extra promotional activity for winners announced in March
- First-place prize of $3,000 for the winning team and $1,500 for second place