Avoid this
- Creating a plan that depends only on willpower
- Ignoring cost, convenience, or social habits
- Making recommendations that are too vague
High school project idea · Environment & Sustainability
Design a Greener Daily Life
Build a practical sustainability system that makes greener choices easier in everyday life.
The best sustainability plans work because real people can actually use them.
Original Compass project by Davisville LabsReviewed August 2026Goal real work, evidence, and reflectionEditorial standards →
Why this project matters
Learn by doing something real.
Sustainability becomes more powerful when it fits real life. Many environmental ideas fail because they ask people to change too much too quickly or ignore convenience, cost, habits, and social norms. This project helps students design a practical system that makes greener choices easier for a real group of people, turning sustainability from a vague value into a usable daily routine.
What you will create
Your project plan
Use these deliverables as milestones for Design a Greener Daily Life. Adapt the details to your interests, available time, and real-world opportunities.
- 01
Daily Life Sustainability Audit
Choose a real setting and identify habits, routines, materials, or decisions that create avoidable waste, energy use, water use, or environmental impact.
- 02
People & Behavior Map
Define who uses the system, what they currently do, what makes change difficult, and what would make greener choices easier.
- 03
Greener System Design
Create a realistic sustainability system with specific routines, tools, reminders, materials, roles, or changes that fit the setting.
- 04
Implementation Guide
Build a clear guide, checklist, sign, routine map, or visual plan that explains how people could actually use the system.
- 05
Sustainability System Case Study
Publish a portfolio-ready case study explaining the challenge, system design, feedback, tradeoffs, implementation plan, and lessons learned.
Make the work stronger
What separates a finished project from a meaningful one?
For Design a Greener Daily Life, use these checkpoints to protect the quality of the work without turning the project into a performance for admissions.
Evidence that it is working
- A real routine or setting was selected
- Current habits and barriers were analyzed
- A greener daily life system was designed
If you want to go further
- Pilot the system for one week
- Create signs or visual reminders for the setting
Skills you can build
Capabilities that travel beyond this project.
Systems DesignEnvironmental LiteracyCommunicationPractical Problem SolvingIteration
College application value
Use the project as evidence, not decoration.
Demonstrates initiative, environmental awareness, service, systems thinking, creativity, communication, practical problem solving, and the ability to design change that people could realistically adopt.
InitiativeEnvironmental ResponsibilityServiceSystems ThinkingCreativity
The goal of Design a Greener Daily Life is not to manufacture an impressive activity. Do real work, keep evidence of the process, and reflect honestly on what changed.
How this guide was made
Read editorial standards →Design a Greener Daily Life is an original Compass educational starting point designed around real work, visible evidence, feedback, and reflection. It is not an admissions guarantee.
Ready to build it?
Try this project in Compass