Campus Conservation Nationals Celebrates 5th Anniversary

National Wildlife Federation’s partnership with Campus Conservation Nationals hits milestone as 2015 competition inspires college students across North America to reduce their electricity and water consumption.

National Wildlife Federation, in partnership with the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), Lucid, and the Alliance to Save Energy is pleased to announce the results of the Campus Conservation Nationals (CCN) 2015 competition.

THE RESULTS 

In its fifth year, more than 343,000 students and staff across 125 colleges and universities participated in CCN 2015, which saved the schools more than $290,000 in electricity and water in just three weeks. Over the five years of the competition, CCN participants have saved 6 million kilowatt hours (six GWh) of electricity, equivalent to averting more than 9 million pounds of CO2 from the atmosphere.

To learn more about the results of the competition, visit CompeteToReduce.org/2015.

THE COMPETITION

From Feb. 1 through April 30, 2015, students and staff competed to achieve the greatest reductions in their residence halls’ energy use over a three-week period. Students and staff used tactics such as direct action, real-time consumption dashboards and social media to motivate and encourage sustainable behaviors, proving that occupants play a critical role in greening their buildings. By making commitments to turn off unused electronics, take shorter showers, use the stairs instead of the elevator and other simple changes in behavior, students across the country demonstrated how individual actions could make a big collective difference in the way our buildings consume electricity and water.

THE WINNERS

The 10 schools with the largest overall percent reduction of electricity produced were (listed alphabetically) California State University – Chico, Concordia College, Dickinson College, Eastern Mennonite University, Georgia State University, Hofstra University, Northwest Missouri State University, Oklahoma State University, San Diego State University and Western Technical College, with the highest-performing school reducing its electricity use by 30.6 percent during its competition. The five schools with the largest overall percent reduction in their water use were (listed alphabetically) Eastern Washington University, Oberlin College, Pima Community College, University of Nevada – Las Vegas and Wake Forest University, with the highest-performing school reducing its water use by 19.8 percent.

“Campus Conservation Nationals demonstrates how students are leading real change on their campuses,” said Courtney Cochran, Senior Coordinator of National Wildlife Federation’s EcoLeaders Initiative, “Students witness firsthand the positive impact their actions and leadership can have and they will carry those behaviors and skills with them in their future endeavors as “EcoLeaders”.

THE TECHNOLOGY

During the competition, Lucid’s technology facilitated cross-departmental collaboration, with more than 50 percent of participants stating that CCN helped build new relationships between campus groups, such as facilities, sustainability, residence life and student leaders. Participating schools used Lucid’s BuildingOS platform to track electricity and water use and to share building performance and competition standings with students and staff.

“CCN opens the eyes of students and administrators alike to the potential of strong energy management,” said Chelsea Hodge, director of engagement programs at Lucid. “They realize that, wow, if we can achieve substantial reductions through just empowering individuals to change their behavior, then we can achieve equally large, or larger, savings by optimizing building operations, while saving money and improving comfort and productivity. CCN is a window into this potential.”

THE POSTER CONTEST

One of the driving forces of participation on campus in Campus Conservation Nationals (CCN) are the many, entertaining, inspiring and clever posters that promote energy reduction at participating campuses across the country. CCN participants were encouraged to both create these posters to use during the competition and to enter their posters in the CCN Poster Contest. The contest was open to student, faculty and staff whose school participated in CCN 2015, and submissions were invited for three categories: “Best Outreach”, posters that best communicated information about competition events, format, prizes, logistics, or the competition itself, “Best Behavior Change”, posters that best utilized one or more of the Behavior Change Tools outlined in the CCN Marketing & Behavior Change Guide, and “Popular Vote”, posters that received the most votes during the public voting period in April.

To learn more about the poster contest and view all of the entries, including the winners, please visit: http://www.competetoreduce.org/2015/posters

CONNECTION TO NWF ECOLEADERS INITIATIVE

NWF’s partnership in the Campus Conservation Nationals annual competition  directly ties to NWF’s EcoLeaders initiative. Student participation and leadership in CCN helps students earn certification as NWF EcoLeaders and boost their preparation for related careers. CCN student participants join nearly 750 registered students from 250 campuses in 45 states who are currently supporting one another towards the NWF EcoLeader Certification.

“Through this national resource competition, students gain key environmental career skills employers tell us time and time again they are looking for, such as how to build happy, productive teams, reduce waste and costs, measure results, and communicate success,”  said Julian Keniry, Senior Director of the NWF Campus Ecology Program. “These are also exactly the kinds of experiences that make students and young professionals more effective agents for sustainability, which makes them eligible for recognition through National Wildlife Federation’s EcoLeaders certification program.”

Learn more about NWF’s EcoLeaders Initiative here: www.NWFEcoLeaders.org

HISTORY

Campus Conservation Nationals is part of a series of nine national competitions focused on campus and student leadership for the environment National Wildlife Federation (NWF) has hosted since 2007.  In 2010, NWF joined with Lucid design and USGBC to take the competition into the residences, focusing the awards on the role of students in achieving measurable energy and water conservation.   Lucid Design was founded by the Oberlin College students and instructors recognized in the very first national chill out competition in 2007 and, in the short time since, Oberlin graduates have made Lucid one of the most innovative resource efficiency and conservation companies in the world.

 

Help NWF continue to educate students nationwide about conservation.