How To Organize a Taming Bigfoot Competition
The initial Taming Bigfoot competition was a smashing success. Not only did the nearly 100 participants learn a great deal about their carbon footprint, the relative effectiveness of different approaches to reducing it and take pride in their carbon-footprint reducing success, but the Taming Bigfoot activity has become exceedingly popular with other communities.
This document is a brief description of the steps taken by the group that created and ran the first Taming Bigfoot competition (in 2016) along with a few additional tips from the groups that organized the next two to run in 2018. It should be used as guidance, rather than a rigid formula, to help anyone thinking about running a Taming Bigfoot competition. Other groups may wish to either omit certain elements or add others as suits their particular situation. A more comprehensive guide is planned for release later in 2018 which will include even more resources. However, we are eager to hear of your interest, ready to answer any questions you may have and willing to help however we can. Contact information is given at the end of the this guide.
The many elements that go into a successful Taming Bigfoot campaign are described in the separate sections that follow.
Organizing group
A central group of people needs to take ownership of the activity. It need not be very large; 6-10 people is adequate, depending on the skills and time commitment of each. They need to communicate effectively and respect deadlines, so the numerous elements each advance at a pace that doesn't inhibit other elements progressing. A variety of skills is valuable including, marketing, advertising, design, communication, and data-processing, though these need not be professional-level skills. An effective manager, who serves as a final decision-maker, to oversee the entire process is a great advantage. Ultimately, this is the group that will determine the success of the competition. The first competition was organized in less than 6 months, but at times it was hectic. Six to nine months is a more reasonable time-frame once the organizing group is identified.
Rules & Scoring
The organizing committee must determine all the details
about the competition. The first competition specified certain team
characteristics (size and composition, discussed below) and ran for 3 months
with the first month being used to determine a baseline carbon footprint for
each team. This was important because teams started with such different
initial carbon footprints. Not only did it educate everyone on what their
individual footprint was, as well as how much each component contributed to
their overall footprint, but they also learned how to collect the relevant
data, which made the next phase run smoothly. An example of how team baseline
data was displayed is shown in the following figure.
Each team's baseline data is represented by a bubble. The color represents the overall footprint magnitude (according the color scale at the bottom); the size of the bubble represents the Food/Shopping footprint size (according to the circle in the upper right) and the horizontal and vertical positions of each team's bubble represents its Home and Transportation footprints.
The second phase of the competition was the "reduction" period that ran the remaining two months where teams attempted to reduce their carbon footprint as much as possible by employing a strategy of their own design. Teams were scored by how much they reduced their carbon footprint in 4 categories (Home, Transportation, Food & Shopping, as well as Total). Because baseline footprints varied so much, a team's reduction was measured relative to their own baseline footprint. And to avoid penalizing teams with a small starting footprint, reduction was measured both in terms of proportional reduction as well as their absolute reduction. The large number of scoring categories made it possible to produce many different ways to succeed and allowed for many different winners.
Much of this scoring structure is reflected in the design of the Taming Bigfoot web site, so it is an easy one to use and the first wave of follow-up competitions have repeated much of what was done initially. However, the information provided by the web site can be used in other ways, so new groups need not feel constrained to repeat every aspect of the first Taming Bigfoot and are encouraged to improve upon the initial competitions.
Team Composition
Teams for the first Taming Bigfoot competition consisted of seven persons each with each team member having to fulfill (at least) one of seven characteristics:
· lives in Port Townsend
· lives outside Port Townsend
· lives a "green" lifestyle already (loosely defined)
· does not live a "green" lifestyle (loosely defined)
· lives alone or with only one other person
· 30 years old, or younger
· is a prominent member of the community (loosely defined)
The rationale for imposing this diversity was to ensure that each team included various perspectives and lifestyles to enrich their discussion of how they might reduce their collective carbon footprint. Other groups running Taming Bigfoot have adopted both the requirements of 7-person teams and a diverse set of characteristics, however the list of required characteristics have been modified (e.g., a retired person, a long-distance commuter, etc.) to better fit the diversity of their own community. There is no restriction written into the web site that teams must be exactly 7 people, but experience has suggested this works well.
Carbon Emission Conversion Factors
Quantifying an individual's carbon footprint lies at the heart of the competition, so great care was taken to document the conversion factors used to translate all the items monitored into the amount of greenhouse gases, expressed as an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide, usually written CO2e. A separate document that describes the source for each conversion factor is available on the Taming Bigfoot web site. A key characteristic of the Taming Bigfoot calculator is the opportunity to provide unique conversion factors that customize the calculated footprints to the specific location of each competition. Many of the conversion factors are constant everywhere, e.g. gasoline and other fuels used in private transportation, but some important ones are not, e.g., electricity generation, water and wastewater and public transit systems. It is the responsibility of the organizing group to provide these conversion factors. Municipal agencies commonly have the data, in the form of ridership statistics and energy inventories, to allow these conversion factors to be calculated.
The Taming Bigfoot carbon footprint calculator does not include every possible source of an individual's footprint. Many areas of consumption are so varied it is not possible to be comprehensive without requiring a large amount of specific information from the user and a great deal of research in the manufacturing and transportation processes of innumerable companies. As an alternative, the approach taken was to include most of the largest contributions to one's carbon footprint and enough data in three sector areas (Home Energy, Transportation, and Food/Shopping) to be indicative of one's carbon footprint. As a result, actual footprints might be larger and may not exactly match carbon footprints calculated with other tools. Nevertheless, comparisons made consistently with this calculator over time or among different people are meaningful.
Data Guide
The mobile apps and web site have greatly simplified the task of entering data and organizers of past Taming Bigfoot competitions have included an on-line guide to assist participants in what data should be entered and, in some cases, like reading electric meters, how to obtain these data. Future competitions probably have little work to do in this area because most of the instructions can be copied from existing guides available on the web site.
Endorsements
An important objective for the creators of Taming Bigfoot was to use the activity to draw the community together by emphasizing that reducing greenhouse gas emissions was a "common good", i.e., a result that benefited everyone. Thus, the idea of Taming Bigfoot was pitched to the local governing groups and their endorsements requested. Because Taming Bigfoot competitions can be run without requiring financial assistance from local governments while they educate and empower local citizens, these endorsements are usually easy to secure. Despite the simplicity of obtaining these endorsements, they can prove extremely valuable in promoting the competition with the local community.
Sponsorships
Sponsors refer to local businesses, public utilities, in fact any entity, that supports the competition by contributing a product to the pool of prizes to be awarded to successful participants at the conclusion of the competition. This is a powerful way to broaden the engagement of the community and can be used in a variety of ways. Becoming a sponsor allows the business (or other entity) to express their support for the emission-reducing goals of the competition. Publicity (discussed below) about the competition provides free advertising for the sponsors and in the initial competition, sponsors were given the opportunity both to hand out any literature about themselves, and also to address the participants at an all-team meeting and explain the measures they were taking to reduce their own carbon footprint. As the list of sponsors increases, it generally becomes easier to get yet more sponsors.
Application Process
The method by which interested people can apply to participate must be prepared by the organizers. Past organizers have allowed applications from complete teams, partial teams and single individuals. In the latter two cases, there needs to one (or more) organizers designated, and a process for assigning individual applicants to partial teams. A member of the organizing group will be given permission to set up the teams in the web tool.
Publicity
Getting the word out to the potential participant pool is critical to a successful competition. Most of the details of how the competition is to be run should be determined prior to any public release. There is no end of marketing strategies (brochures, newspapers, local newsletters, electronic bulletin boards, radio, etc.) that can be employed. A concise description of the competition, its goals and the benefits for each participant is essential. This is when all the endorsements and sponsors and prizes will draw heightened attention to the competition. Use these to build excitement in anticipation of receiving applications. Samples from past competitions can be provided.
Communication
Once people apply, there needs to be an effective mechanism to communicate with them. Pushing information out is easy (each account on the web site has an email associated with it), but managing possible feedback and questions from many can be overwhelming. Establishing a network where each team has a person assigned to serve as the intermediary between the organizers and the team members was used effectively in the initial competition.
There will likely be many things to communicate--likely both directions. From the organizers, there will be initial information about teams that are "accepted" to the competition and there will probably be some orientation or "kick-off" event or meeting to remind everyone what the competition is about, the rules, the schedule, etc., all before the competition even starts. After the event starts, there will be clarifications, new information and updates. The web site allows participants to check team standings, but the opportunity to build excitement as the competition unfolds should not be missed. Finally, once the competition is over, participants should be treated to an awards event where final standings are announced and prizes awarded. This is the culmination of the competition, so don't forget to remind everyone why the competition was held, and invite them to share what they learned in the process!
Endnote
For the organizers, this final event is the payoff--the satisfaction that comes from running a Taming Bigfoot competition is highly rewarding! We are eager to help you enjoy this educational, enjoyable and effective program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This guide provides a proven roadmap and the mobile apps and web site make it easier than ever to run this competition in your community. If you are interested, please contact tamingbigfoot@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.