Announcing Campus Conservation Nationals Video Contest Winners!

As part of Campus Conservation Nationals 2013, NWF Campus Ecology hosted a video contest encouraging students to creatively showcase their energy and water-saving initiatives.
As part of Campus Conservation Nationals 2013, NWF Campus Ecology hosted a video contest encouraging students to creatively showcase their energy and water-saving initiatives.
If you happened to spend time on a college campus between February 4 and April 26, 2013, you may have noticed that dorm buildings were darker than usual, and that students may have smelled a little bit more funky. In the name of resource use reduction, 300,000 students at 120 colleges and universities across the country switched off lights and took shorter showers as part of Campus Conservation NationalsCCN is the largest water and electricity use reduction competition at colleges and universities in the country. A partnership between the National Wildlife Federation, Lucid Design Group, U.S. Green Building Council and the Alliance to Save Energy, CCN is in its third year. Each year, the program engages an increasing number of campuses and the kilowatt-hours and gallons of water saved also get larger!

In 2013, the 300,000 student competitors saved 2,114,844 kilowatt-hours of electricity, enough to power 187 U.S. homes for a year, and equivalent to 2,426,040 pounds of CO2! Students were also able to save 1,681,241 gallons of water, equivalent to 11,208 shower hours. That’s almost 31 years of taking a one-hour shower every day–and nearly a 100 shower-hour increase over the 2012 water savings!

CCN gives students a common voice and motivation to hundreds of thousands of students, all working together to reduce consumption and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Upon registering for CCN, colleges and universities tailored the contest to their specific preferences–choosing to pit on-campus residences against each other, or to rally the entire campus to save more than other schools in their region or state. Schools in New York, California, Kentucky competed in small groups to see which could take the top prize. In California, the Alliance to Save Energy hosted a PowerSave Green Campus competition. California State University Chico won, having reduced electricity use 12.8%, beating out nine other CSU and UC school to take home the prize.

NWF’s Campus Ecology program hosted a CCN video contest, offering a $1,000 grand prize to the school with the best video documenting students taking positive actions on their campus. Earlham College in Indiana won best video, featuring strategies to reduce energy and water usage on campus with more than 500 votes from CCN participants. Watch the 2013 CCN video program featuring campuses competing this spring below, or visit the Campus Ecology facebook page.

 

Celebrate CCN 2013 by watching the CCN video program! Click the image to watch on YouTube.
Celebrate CCN 2013 by watching the CCN video program! Click the image to watch on YouTube.

“The video submissions this year were really tremendous,” said Kristy Jones, senior manager, Campus Ecology. “The videos are inspiring documentation of the kind of creative actions students are taking to address climate change and improve the sustainability of their universities.”

Congratulations to the 9 video contest entrants, and to all the resource-saving winners who participated in Campus Conservation Nationals 2013! Stay tuned for updates and get ready for CCN 2014!

NWF’s Campus Ecology Program has been a lead partner on Campus Conservation Nationals since 2011. Before 2011, NWF hosted its own green campus competition, Chill Out, showcasing students, faculty and staff taking action for the environment. NWF’s Campus Ecology Program works with more than half of the nation’s 4,100 colleges and universities to advance climate action and sustainability on campus and in the community.

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