By Micah Wiebe-Powell
Last year my colleagues and I participated in the first-ever Inovateus Sustainability Challenge. I was thrilled to work at a company where I’m challenged and rewarded to improve my sustainability standards. I was even more thrilled to have performed enough sustainable actions to win first place. Sustainability is one of my core values because taking real action, even on an individual level, represents mutually beneficial interactions between local and global communities and ecosystems that help foster healthy growth.
I’m proud to be part of the Inovateus team, which has a solid commitment to sustainability beyond the hundreds of megawatts of solar energy we design and implement. Dedication to ecological stewardship is apparent in various green initiatives, such as the company-wide sustainability challenge.
About the Inovateus Sustainability Challenge
The Inovateus Sustainability Challenge is an annual employee game with sustainability actions that are associated with a points system. Some are easier to mark off than others, but all are worthwhile. There are three core categories; the first is Energy Efficiency and Energy Conservation, which includes 25 plus actionable items, such as making energy efficiency improvements to reduce energy needs and bills by 50%.
The second category is Waste, Reduction, Recycling, and Resource Conservation. It includes over 25 action items, like going zero-waste for the entire year or participating in Zero Waste Week.
Finally, the third category is Sustainable Lifestyle (Purchased Goods, Travel, Habits, Education), which includes about 35 items for points, such as buying used goods and furniture and growing your own herbs.
There were three winning prizes. My colleague Jefferson Gerwig, director of procurement, won third place and received a $500 gift card to a sustainable/eco-friendly organization of his choice. Tim Powers, Inovateus’ development and policy manager, won second place and received a $1,000 gift card to a sustainable/eco-friendly organization. I won first place and got to take an eco-tourism trip. Congrats to my colleagues Tim and Jefferson!
During this competition, participants participated in numerous sustainable activities, including turning down or up the thermostat to save energy, relying on passive solar heating, turning off idle appliances, composting and gardening on a regular basis, logging/reducing our waste, including trash and recycling; biking or walking to destinations whenever feasible; driving a hybrid vehicle; carpooling; working remotely; and planting hundreds of house plants to capture carbon.
We also made an effort to reduce our carbon footprint by purchasing energy-efficient LEDs and Smart Plugs. We also earned points by prioritizing buying organic, locally grown produce, and by incorporating reusable household items, such as cloth grocery bags and jars.
As the winner of the Inovateus Sustainability Challenge, I’m excited to be going on my ecotourism trip. My roommates have decided to join me, and we decided to take an eco-tourism vacation to Costa Rica in January 2023. We’re looking forward to nature hikes that will explore Costa Rica’s native flora and fauna, as well as experiencing the locally grown food and rich culture of Central America.
We’re planning our vacation around ecotourism-based resorts and activities in the La Fortuna and Dominical regions, relying heavily on public transportation for much of the trip. To reduce the carbon impact of our air travel, we’re looking into carbon offsets for our flights to and from Costa Rica.
I’ve learned a great deal from Inovateus and the Sustainability Challenge, as well as during my time at Stanford University, where I earned my MS in Civil and Environmental Engineering with a focus in Climatology and Renewable Energy and Efficiency Systems.
Participating in this challenge was important to me. It solidified the reality that while the individual step is important in the fight to mitigate global warming, it is far more critical for society as a whole and large companies to do their part in decarbonization. For example, individuals can certainly help reduce single-use plastic bags, but to make the biggest impact, the U.S. will need State and Federal policies with macro-economic incentives to ban them entirely.
Climate change and arctic destabilizations are serious threats that have objectively been catalyzed by human activity over the last 150 years. One of the most effective solutions we can do as a society is to divest from the fossil fuel industry and other carbon-based assets.
It was my pleasure to participate in the Inovateus Sustainability Challenge. Connecting what we do individually helps fuel the greater action and broader education that is needed.
I’m looking forward to our eco-tourism trip to Costa Rica, a leader powered by 99% renewable energy sources. It will be inspiring to learn about the many ways that Costa Rica has turned environmental knowledge into sustainable policy and business standards.
Micah Wiebe-Powell is a proud design engineer with the Inovateus. He won the 2021 Sustainability Challenge by accomplishing sustainable tasks and receiving the most points for his efforts.
