To Save Resources, Campuses get Creative–and Competitive

As anyone who has been on a college campus knows, there’s no shortage of school pride; just think of how many college sweatshirts you probably have in your own closet.  Colleges and universities love a good rivalry with another school, whether competing in academics, sports, best food, or prettiest campus — and now, energy and resource savings.  Add school pride and innate love of competition to students’ desire to make the world a better place and you get over 40 schools participating in the first ever Campus Conservation Nationals!

Campus Conservation Nationals is the first national electricity and water reduction competition on college and university campuses. With 40 institutions, 500 buildings and 120,000 students around North America participating, it’s also proving to be extremely popular. Each school is striving to be the top reducer during the three week competition, which ends November 19. The goal is to engage, educate, motivate and empower students across the country to modify their behavior to become better stewards of the resources used in residence halls, while positively contributing the carbon reduction efforts of their campuses.

All this energy reduction doesn’t mean that students are going to be sitting around alone in the dark in their dorm rooms, however; many campuses have been devising extremely creative ways to reduce their resource use that actually build positive experiences for students rather than depriving them of anything. The Phantom Hunter is on the lookout for energy wasters at Humboldt State University.  Organizers at Brown University held a Glee watching party to encourage people to leave their rooms dark and gather to watch on just one TV.  Radford University’s mascot, The Highlander is scouting Radford’s campus to ensure students are using resources wisely. He is getting everyone involved, including Radford’s president!

Check out www.competetoreduce.org to see if your campus or alma mater is participating and find out what college is in the lead.  Don’t feel left out if your campus didn’t participate this year–find out the details and how to sign up for the 2011 competition today.