The Carbon Reduction Challenge has revealed this year’s winner as Aleena Noor, IE ’28. The challenge urges students to create a sustainable solution to a real-world problem. By providing participants with an opportunity to showcase their sustainable strategies, this competition provides a jump start for Jackets looking to pursue various fields in sustainable consulting.
Noor has always been passionate about sustainability and strives to incorporate this passion into her life at Tech. During her first semester, she joined Electrify GT, a club that focuses on creating sustainable solutions to challenging problems. Through this club, Noor was exposed to both consulting and various sustainability initiatives.
“[I’ve] always been passionate about sustainability… even in high school, I wrote my college essay on it. Joining Electrify GT my first semester really opened my eyes to how sustainability connects to consulting and how even small changes can create a big impact,” Noor stated.
Noor had learned about the Carbon Reduction Challenge through Electrify GT and decided to join the competition to incorporate her learned skills into a larger, more individual project.
During her summer internship at Ernst & Young in Boston, Noor discovered areas of the historical office building that had the bandwidth to be involved in more sustainable processes.
Noor had noticed that “there are kitchens on every floor, and yet there were no compost bins, even though the office was using compostable items. On top of that, people were constantly complaining about the temperature, … I was freezing all the time. When you have those kinds of extremes, it’s not just uncomfortable; it’s wasting a lot of energy. Adjusting something as small as a set point could make a huge difference, both for employees and for the environment.”
Additionally, in order to make her project effective and practical, Noor focused on lowering costs and outlined more feasible initiatives that the firm had the capacity to tackle. She had noticed that since the building was almost 50 years old, it would be most effective to focus on composting and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) within the building. After identifying her goals, Noor demonstrated the benefits of her plan to her colleagues and how their investments in her sustainability project would be profitable for the company.
However, this process was not without adversity. Being an intern at a large corporation, Noor noticed how difficult it was to get her foot in the door and advocate for her project.
“It was pretty difficult, especially as an intern. Big firms are so compartmentalized, and since I was in tech consulting, I wasn’t anywhere near the sustainability team. Even my managers didn’t always know what the best approach would be,” Noor recalled.
Nevertheless, Noor took this as a learning opportunity to grow and expand her networking skills. Refusing to turn away from her project proposal, Noor set out to meet the right people and widened her search to find people who could help her develop these sustainable solutions.
“Through navigating the firm, I was able to meet a lot of different people. I wouldn’t change that part of the process, because even though it was a challenge, it pushed me to network across the organization and learn things I never would have otherwise,” Noor stated.
Noor implemented her HVAC and compost sustainable solutions and watched as the benefits were reaped from her project designs. Not only did these solutions improve employee satisfaction, but they also reduced carbon emissions.
Due to the success of phase one, Noor was able to look into phase two of her project, which would be implemented in 2028. For this, Noor has hopes that this organization will invest more money into these sustainable solutions and will eventually implement new sensors in their buildings in order to optimize the HVAC even more when rooms or areas are unused and further reduce emissions and HVAC costs.
As Noor continues to oversee this project, she is also excited to get involved in other sustainability organizations on campus. She hopes to return to Electrify GT as a project lead, further developing her skills in sustainable consulting.
Through this experience, Noor learned that she would like to work in a field where technology and sustainability overlap. She aspires to continue progressing the field of sustainability in any way possible, as she believes that all “small changes can have such large effects on the environment.”
Noor’s main takeaway from her experience in the Carbon Reduction Challenge is the importance of taking the initiative and remaining consistent despite potential adversity one may face.
“There were so many times I felt like I had nothing to contribute, but just showing up and being consistent helped me learn. You don’t have to feel qualified to start; … if you put effort into it, you’ll surprise yourself with what you’re capable of.”