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October 5, 2007 > News > Energy contest to promote campus sustainability

Energy contest to promote campus sustainability

By Joyce Yao | Thresher staff

While students often show college pride under the lights of the intramural fields, this month the competition is about turning the lights off in an energy contest between the north and south colleges.

The competition was organized by the Common Reading Group and the Environmental Club in an effort to raise awareness of sustainability on campus and to promote environmentally-friendly lifestyles. The competition started Monday and will last until the end of the month.

Energy consumption will be measured by the quantity of chilled water used to provide cooling and electricity per capita. The winners will receive a few thousand dollars courtesy of the Office of the Dean of Undergraduates, Housing and Dining, and Director of Sustainability Richard Johnson. The losers will fund a public party for the whole campus.

The idea was first generated by a sustainability competition between Wiess College and Martel College last fall, Advisor to the Dean of Undergraduates Matthew Taylor said. A campus-wide discussion on climate change during Orientation Week also contributed to the idea of a campus-wide energy competition.

The competition pits the north and south colleges against each other instead of a college free-for-all because Wiess and Martel are the only colleges with individual energy meters, Taylor said. The Sustainability Office can monitor the energy consumption of all the south colleges and all the north colleges, so this was the only way to measure student energy use in the dormitories.

“We are not sure what the outcomes of the competition will be, but the college presidents are very enthusiastic about it,” Taylor said. “They were contacted over the summer and had a number of ideas, and realistically knew that we would have to offer incentives to get the students to cooperate in such an event.”

Head of Housing and Dining Mark Ditman said it is possible that the north colleges are more energy efficient due to their relative newness of their buildings, but that the south colleges have recently had air-conditioning modifications.

“The advantages or disadvantages between the north and south colleges are very relative,” Ditman said. “The most important thing here is the students’ behaviors. The students that are most interested in conserving energy will be the ones that prevail.”

A handicap has been calculated from energy consumption data from the year 2006 to equilize variations in facilities.

Sid Richardson College junior Jessica Coe said that the Environmental Club was hoping to hold a dormitory energy competition every year.

“Even though it’s only a month long, we are raising awareness,” Coe, a member of the Environmental Club, said. “We’re hoping that people will learn from this month and change their way of living to fit the rest of their year.”

Will Rice freshman Elizabeth Carstens is very excited about the energy competition.

“I’ve started unplugging my printer whenever I’m not using it to print things, but I always keep the air conditioning on at 75 [degrees],” Carstens said. “Ideally, the dormitories should be certified as green buildings, but I really hope that the energy competition will result in permanent effects on sustainability.”

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