Clear the Air Challenge Winners Announced

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH (March 16, 2018) – The 2018 Clear the Air Challenge has wrapped up and the first winter-time Challenge was a huge success. The Salt Lake Chamber, along with its partners TravelWise and UCAIR, are excited to release the final results of the 2018 Clear the Air Challenge.

The Clear the Air Challenge is a month-long initiative that encourages Utah residents to drive less and drive smarter during the month of February. Participants help improve air quality by avoiding trips alone in their car and using alternative modes of transportation such as carpooling, taking public transit, walking, biking or trip chaining.

For the first time in its 9-year history, the 2018 Challenge was held in the month of February to draw attention to individuals and teams who make a difference for our air by creating new commuting habits and changing their individual behavior during a time when air quality is visibly at its worst.

“The Clear the Air Challenge shows us that small individual changes can, and do, make a difference to Utah’s air quality,” said Lane Beattie, president and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber. “Doing our part to clear the air isn’t just about our quality of life, it’s about the quality of life of our children and grandchildren. We are encouraged that so many businesses and individuals are taking responsibility and have taken actions towards clearing up our air and creating a better future for all Utahns.”

Collectively, this year’s participants eliminated 89,076 trips, saved 1,427,134 miles, 368.1 tons of CO2 and $423,388 dollars, and burned 2,120,838 calories in just 28 days.

“We at UCAIR continue to be optimistic with the way our business community comes together to find solutions related to air quality,” said Thom Carter, Executive Director of UCAIR. “With the amount of participation this year, it is clear that our business leaders are looking inward and finding ways to work within their organizations to have the best long term effect on our air. In our efforts to clear the air there are no perfect answers, but there are practical solutions; everyone that participated in the Clear the Air Challenge now knows how easy it is to find a practical solution that works for them.”

Top Large Teams:

  1. University of Utah
  2. Utah Transit Authority
  3. Fidelity Investments
  4. Salt Lake City Corporation
  5. Weber-Morgan Residents

Top Small Teams

  1. Enterprise Rent-A-Car
  2. Utah Department of Environmental Quality
  3. Weber-Morgan Health Department
  4. Management & Training Corporation
  5. HEAL Utah

Top Users

  1. Clayton Price
  2. Soren Simonsen
  3. Megan Price
  4. Spencer Hancock
  5. Stephen Rufus

###

ABOUT THE CLEAR THE AIR CHALLENGE

The Clear the Air Challenge, issued by business, government and community leaders, is a month-long competition that gives you the chance to reduce your vehicle emissions by choosing alternatives to driving alone. The Clear the Air Challenge is a partnership between TravelWise, UCAIR and the Salt Lake Chamber.

ABOUT THE SALT LAKE CHAMBER

The Salt Lake Chamber is Utah’s largest and longest-standing business association. A statewide chamber of commerce with members in all 29 Utah counties, the Chamber represents the broad interests of the state’s 63,000- plus employers, which employ more than 1.4 million Utahns. This includes thousands of Chamber members and their employees. With roots that date back to 1887, the Chamber stands as the voice of business, supports its members’ success and champions community prosperity.

CONTACT
Salt Lake Chamber
Kimberly Flores
(801) 328-5089
kflores@slchamber.com

2018 Team Story: Salt Lake City Corp.

Salt Lake City Corp. ramped up our game in 2018 for the Clear the Air Challenge. As Utah’s capital city, we understand how important it is to “walk our talk” on air quality and reducing our own emissions. The Challenge is a fun way to engage employees on commuting behaviors and to bring more awareness to the power and choices we all have to make a difference.

This year SLC ran an “internal bracket” between departments for four weeks. We paired each of our 16 departments against another to see who won based on different metrics each week (trips saved per capita, total trips saved, most improved, etc). There were no departments eliminated in the bracket, but the department with the most “wins” received the Mayor’s Clear the Air Challenge Cup. Participating employees from the winning department also received a lunch gift certificate from the Mayor’s Office.

This strategy significantly increased SLC Corp’s competitive spirit (friendly “trash talk” abounded) and upped participation. We were pleased to finish in the top 5 on the overall leaderboard in 2018! We also saw bigger departments running their own competition between their divisions. Here are some strategies from the Department of Community & Neighborhoods which finished 20th overall statewide. They:

  • Created little competitions within our team to personalize the Challenge
  • Mentioned the competition and how we were doing multiple times a week to keep up momentum
  • Used each week as a chance to beat another department.
  • Weekly updates in our intra department newsletter.

The Clear the Air Challenge works however you can make it fun and competitive for your organization. We can’t wait to see what more we can do next year!

2018 Team Story: Culinary Crafts

Culinary Crafts loved participating in the Clear the Air Challenge this year! We’ve participated for the past 3 years, but 2018 was our best yet! When you cater for thousands of people each year, you see the environmental impact of large-scale events up-close and personal. That’s why our goal is always to make our carbon footprint as small as possible. We embraced that goal in this years challenge! We put fliers to remind our staff to log their trips all over the office (including the bathrooms). We also had a milk and cookies kick-off event where our employees ate car shaped cookies. We even put a bike in our front office for employees to use instead of driving!

Our favorite way to reduce emissions (and something we rocked at during this year’s challenge) is van-pooling! Culinary Crafts offers bonuses to team members who van-pool, but that’s not why we do it. Not only does van-pooling help the environment, it also builds team relationships. Those van rides are a highlight of the job!

Culinary Craft’s efforts to improve air quality in Utah are ongoing. We will continue to do our best for Utah and are already looking forward to next year’s challenge!

2018 Team Story: Weber-Morgan Health Department

Walking meetings and walking breaks are a big part of the Weber-Morgan Health Department‘s Worksites Empowered project to encourage local businesses and agencies to implement worksite wellness programs. Our health promotion employees try to embody the concepts they teach as they walk to meet with community partners or plan for their upcoming workshops. In bad weather, they carpool and others skipped a trip to try out some of the in-office workout techniques rather than going off site to the gym.

Interested in learning more about the Worksites Empowered Project?

Join the Weber-Morgan Health Department for a lunch and learn on March 22. To register or more information: Click Here. Cost is $15 and includes lunch and a walking tour of actual healthy worksite ideas. Presentations will be focused on resources available in Weber County but HR and Wellness professionals from anywhere are invited to attend.