In recent years, the importance of sustainability and campus-greening here at Oxy has been on many people's minds. With overwhelming student support, a sustainability fund was created in order to provide funds for projects that will make Oxy more sustainable. Although student support was very high in establishing the fund, participation within the fund has not been so high. One very important reason for low participation rates is due to the structure of the fund. In order to participate, students have to fill out a form, otherwise, a donation will not be made. This is a problem because many people display what is known as status-quo bias. There have been many studies that have shown that often times people do not change options from the default settings. Therefore, something such as a sustainability fund, which has widespread campus support, may very well not receive high levels of participation simply because it is an opt-in program, requiring students to actively search and fill out the proper form. While this process is not a difficult one, students have shown, in reality, that they tend to not do it.
Students have shown that they are in favor of sustainability on campus, but they have not been given the best means available to achieve this. If the sustainability fund is structured as an opt-out fund, the participation rates of students would increase greatly. Students would still be able to opt-out if they desired, but the default option would be to participate. Furthermore, such a charge is minimal relative to the cost of attending Oxy. With total charges now above $50,000 per year, $20 represents only 0.04% of that. That is less than 1%! The gains from such a donation from a high proportion of the students would be immense. A little change in structure could make a big change on campus.
How can a campus go green if it doesn't have the green to fund it?
To make your donation, visit: http://www.oxy.edu/x8314.xml and click on the "Support the Renewable Energy & Sustainability Fund" link.
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good slogan! Unfortunately opt out has been deemed inappropriate by the business office, but the research you site on status quo bias is a good argument as we campaign to make the fun mandatory.
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