What can professional intrapreneurs learn from today’s college students? We think a lot. Launching a passion project within an organization takes guts -- and it doesn’t matter if it takes place on campus or in the office. For our Climate Disruptors series, we’re highlighting the lessons learned from students who have spearheaded sustainability success at school, showing that you can make change from any position.
You have initiated several intrapreneurial ventures throughout your professional and undergraduate career. What is the one that you are most proud of?
That would be the Pee’d Off Initiative I brought to my university. I literally had an ‘aha’ moment while I was peeing and realized that urinals would be such an easy way to conserve water. I had been looking for an opportunity for water conservation and realized that 40,000 gallons of water can be conserved per year by using a waterless urinal.
How did you know this was the right project to work on?
At the time I was the Director of Projects for the Campus Student Sustainability Initiatives, looking for an “undeniable reality” to lead change.
To me, an undeniable reality is anything where you cannot argue the truth in it. It makes your doubters shut up, because it kills any counter-argument. It is something that makes a lot of sense and is easy to adapt. People don’t like change, so this doesn’t give them an option.
Ideally, these types of projects also don’t require much behavior change from individuals. I did a ton of research and interviewing and eventually found out that a 0.175 gallon flush would be the ideal solution to this water waste issue.
How did you know you achieved success?
Once I had found the high traffic areas on campus, I managed to connect with the right people and installed four new urinals relatively quickly. I can now say that I initiated 80% of water being conserved for every flush of these toilets, saving 35,000 gallons of water per urinal per year. In 10 years, that will conserve 1.32 million gallons of water. But the best part is that it was a relatively simple project. I just had to initiate the change and push for it to go through.
Where do you go from here?
Imagine how much water we could save! The long-term goal is to make this approach the law. If these urinals became standard and we managed to change the policy, then we could make a world of a difference. If we can get urinals in bulk and even use recycled materials, then we could make them more and more universally accessible. You could go so far with this. It is like with LED lights a few decades ago -- someone believed that the system could be revolutionized and today it is common practice to have them.
What characteristics are necessary in a successful intrapreneur?
Apart from that, the more practical, technical things are obviously key too. Do your due diligence and research, and find other success stories to motivate you along the way. My personal inspirations are the projects that I failed at.
Tell me a little more about failure.
Failure is what leaves you thirsty for more, and anything worthwhile truly does not come easy. You asked me about my most successful project, but I can't tell you how many other ideas have failed. Have resilience and keep on fighting the good fight.
If you don’t have all of these things yourself, then that’s okay. I certainly didn’t. It is imperative to have a support system. One individual alone cannot break down all the barriers.
What advice would you give to someone who is just beginning to take the first steps in launching a sustainability project at university of work?
Find what your passion is, whether it’s water conservation energy efficiency or zero waste initiatives. The passion is going to be what drives you through, but it also connects the dots.
Then create your undeniable reality and do your due diligence. Build your best value proposition. Whether at your workplace or your school, if you want to be a climate disruptor, there are probably 10 simple solutions already within your grasp -- you just need to find them. There are all these low hanging fruit. For me, it was always the thought: if they can do it with a lightbulb, I can do it with a urinal.
