Survey Analysis for Water Conservation at Winthrop University

By: Nykia McKenzie, Katie Cantrell, Anita Harris,

Allen Ownley, Patrick Nelson

Introduction:
In order to further understand the perceptions and attitudes towards water conservation on
campus a survey was distributed. This survey was completed by 40 students and 10 faculty. From
these students, 3 were freshman, 6 were sophomores, 10 were juniors, 21 were seniors, and the
remaining 10 were faculty members. It was also fairly evenly distributed with 27 being
commuters and 23 residents on campus. This sample group was used to draw conclusions about
the population of winthrop's students and faculty.
Awareness:
When we asked If they were aware of the term sustainability all but one respondents said
that they were aware of it. This means that a large majority of the population is aware of
conservation and the basic premise behind it. The one who marked unaware could mean that
there is a small portion of the population that is completely unaware of what sustainability is. It
could also mean that they simply know the practice by another term.
The participants were asked whether or not they were aware of the Office of
Sustainability on campus. The responses were almost perfectly even with 26 saying they were
aware and 24 saying they were not. This means that with the efforts that the Office of
Sustainability is putting into conservation they could still be operating at about half the possible
effectiveness as far as marketing their cause to the surrounding community.

Perceptions of Sustainability:
When asked to rate how interested they were in water conservation, the most common
answer was somewhat interested. The remaining option ranged from very uninterested to
very interested. The distribution between these answers was fairly even with the greatest
difference between any two answers were three responses. These results seem to suggest that
there is a large percentage of the population interested in water conservation.
The participants were then asked what comes to mind first when thinking of
sustainability. The most common answer was recycling waste with 30 respondents. Water was
the second most common answer with 10 respondents. Of the remaining 10, 4 thought of fuel
emissions and 6 responded with their own answers. These additional answers ranged from
calling sustainability a lie, using only the resources we can renew, and achieving new
means of energy supply via engineering. These answers seem to indicate that even though a
large majority of the population is aware of sustainability, they do not usually think of water as
the primary resource that needs to be conserved.

When asked to rate how important water conservation was to them, the participants most
common response was that they agreed with 23 responses. The second and third most common
responses were strongly agree and neither agree or disagree with 11 and 12 responses
respectively. This indicates that a majority of the population acknowledges that water
conservation has a notable effect on their life.This is important because it means that a large
percentage of the Office of Sustainability's audience should be receptive to suggestions about
how to conserve water.
In addition to recognizing its importance, the population agreed for the most part that
more should be done to conserve water with only 4 participants who did not either agree or
strongly agree. The most common response was agree with 32 respondents. The second most
common response was strongly agree with 14. This means that a large majority of the
population is likely to agree with your efforts when integrating new strategies for conservation.

The next question we asked was if they thought their personal water consumption
impacted others. Again the over half of the participants thought this was the case with 23 of them
selecting agree and 7 selecting strongly agree. These participants are aware that they have an
effect on their surrounding environment. However, many of these same people also said they
rarely think about their own consumption. This is a disconnect that the Office of Sustainability
can work to change.
Behavior:
Despite the awareness in our sample for the importance of water conservation, not many
people constantly think about their water use. When asked, 18 participants said they think about
their own water consumption less than once a week. The least common answer was that they
always think about their water consumption. This seems to suggest that people think water
consumption is important but overall dont feel a personal responsibility to conserve water
themselves.

We asked if the respondents would be willing to pay a small fee of around five
dollars a year to go towards helping Winthrops conservation efforts. The responses were nearly
split down the middle again with 26 participants saying no and the remaining 24 saying yes.
The ones that said yes also tended to answer other questions by saying that more should be done
about conservation and sustainability was important. However some of the ones that answered in
the same ways still said they would not be willing to pay the fee. This is likely due to the already
high cost of attending Winthrop and the perception of constantly being charged fees for services
students may never need.
In order to get a better understanding of how many water bottles are used on campus we
asked how many the participants use in a week. The most common response was 1-3 with 18
people choosing this answer. The second most common response was I do not use plastic
bottles with 16 people choosing this answer. This could mean that students and staff are using
more refillable bottles or that people are not bringing water to drink on the go.

The next question was whether or not students would use water refilling stations if they
were made available. A vast majority of 43 respondents said they would use water refilling
stations if they were installed. Students said that they are more convenient and faster. Reasons
for the remaining 7 who would not use them could simply be because they see them as
unecessary with water fountains already available. it could also be due to some people not using
water bottles in the first place.
Participants were asked how long a typical shower for them would last in minutes.
The most common responses were 5-9 and 10-14. Out of all participants 34 people chose
one of these answers. There were 4 participants who answered that they took showers lasting
longer than 20 minutes. This means there is an opportunity to conserve water if we can cut down
on some of the longer shower times on campus.

We then asked if participants would be willing to take shorter showers. A majority of the
respondents were willing to shorten their shower time with 29 saying yes. This is good if

Winthrop is going to put together any type of incentive program to cut down on shower times.
One thing to not with the responses is 3 out of 4 of the participants who said they took showers
longer than 20 minutes said they would not be willing to change their habits. It seems that the
largest consumers when it comes to showers are also the least likely to change their habits.
Participants were asked what might motivate them to take shorter showers. The responses
varied widely on this question. The most common themes were that their showers are already
short and therefore do not need to be shortened. Several answers also included that the water
temperature or pressure caused them to take longer than necessary. Finally, there were also
several participants who said that money would motivate them. Winthrop may not be able to pay
money to people who take shorter showers. However they could potentially create incentive
programs or address the issues with temperature and pressure.
In order to better reach the audience we asked how they find out about events on campus.
The most common response was through friends and family with 18 participants agreeing. The
second most common response with 13 was flyers or on campus marketing. This means that if
the Office of Sustainability were to put on an event the best way to reach a large audience would
be through flyers or some on campus advertisements. This would raise awareness and spread
your message further through word of mouth.

Beliefs:
Participants were asked whether they believed a disposable water bottle ban would be
effective at reducing littering and increase water conservation. The respondents did not strongly
favor one side of the issue over another with 23 respondents saying yes and the remaining 27
saying no. This shows that given the population, if Winthrop were to institute this sort of

program on campus it could meet significant opposition. There are those in the survey however
who believe that plastic water bottles are bad for the environment.
To get a better idea of how knowledgeable the community is to the environmental
hazards we asked how long they believe water bottles take to decompose. The answers were
distributed throughout given responses with the most common being 501-1000 years to
decompose. This shows that although the community is aware of the negative implications of
using disposable water bottles, they are not exactly sure as to how drastic that effect really is.
The actual amount of time is generally between 200 and 500 years to fully decompose.

Participants were then asked to provide their own ways that students could conserve
water. Again, the answers varied greatly, however there were some common themes. The most
common two responses were taking shorter showers and turning off faucets when they are not
actively being used. Other options included solutions revolving around using refillable water
bottles. This shows that students are aware of some ways they can be helping the water

conservation effort. To create even more positive change the Office of Sustainability could either
incentivise these actions more or provide more methods of conserving water to the students and
staff regularly.
Finally, we asked what could be done to encourage students to attend an event about
water conservation. The most common answer was to give the event cultural credit status. The
other two most popular tactics were to provide either free food or free items such as water bottles
to people who attended the events. This is important to consider if the Office of Sustainability is
interested in organizing events in the future. Additionally it shows exactly what motivates
students to go out of their way to participate in anything on campus.
Results:
The survey provides a lot of insights into how the community of Winthrop perceives
water conservation. First, a large portion of the population does recognize that conservation and
sustainability are important and many of them are willing to help such a cause. However, even
though they recognize the importance, not as many of them find it interesting. Because of this,
not many of them are currently motivated to go out of their way to support the cause. A
significant portion of the students and faculty are lacking necessary information that could
facilitate them getting involved such as the fact that the Office of Sustainability exists. The
survey also showed that beyond the basic methods of conserving water such as taking shorter
showers and turning off the faucet, not much was known about how else to save water. Another
thing that could help to improve support would be if the students had an outlet in which they
could volunteer their time and services towards the conservation effort. Students would also need
to be aware of such organizations. Many of these issues can be directly addressed by the Office
of Sustainability.

Recommendations:
The Office of Sustainability has several options to help get Winthrops community
involved. First, targeting students can be difficult because of all of the competing flyers and
events they are presented with on a daily basis. According to the survey, students are still getting
information through flyers and on campus marketing. This can be chalk on Scholars Walk or
getting a message on the TVs in Digs. Motivating students requires incentives. The most popular
among these are cultural events, food, and free stuff. These incentives can be used to draw the
attention of the masses. Incentive programs for conserving water can also be used. A program
can be started to monitor water usage throughout residence halls and reward the one which has
the least water usage per person at the end of the semester. Another incentive could be having
contests through social media where students enter by posting about events that you are having.
After the community is properly informed and motivated, there needs to be somewhere
for them to direct all of their new found energy. To accommodate this, the Office of
Sustainability could relaunch a kind of sustainability club. This way students and faculty could
have an easy way to assist Winthrop in making a more sustainable campus. The Office of
Sustainability could work together with this club to organize projects and activities to get even
more members of the community involved. According to the research conducted so far, in order
for campuses to be successful from a sustainability standpoint, the community surround the
university needs to be able to get involved.