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Give Your Campus An Energy Makeover

Goal: To work with campus administration & staff to help improve your college or university's energy efficiency.

Form a Coalition
The first thing you need to do is gather a group of students committed to your goal. A natural place to begin is with environmental clubs on campus, Jewish and otherwise. Once you have a core group, it's important that you then reach out to other, not-necessarily environmental, organizations on campus. By involving student government, residence hall advisors, fraternities or sororities, etc. you may be able to attract more interest from administrators as well as simply benefiting from their help.

Investigation & Assessment
Before taking action, you must first assess how your campus currently uses energy and identify areas that need improvement. Talk to your campus energy manager, building staff, and development officers. Seek the advice of faculty members knowledgeable about energy efficiency, and look to other schools in your area that may already have an energy efficiency plan.

Questions to ask*

• What are the principal sources of energy for your campus and the power plants serving your region? (i.e. oil, natural gas, methane, propane, hydroelectric, etc.)
• How much energy is used on campus? Per square foot of maintained building space? (Units include KWHs of electricity, BTUs or therms of natural gas, and gallons or BTU's of fuel oil.) This standardized formula will allow you to differentiate among changes in consumption due to growth over time, changes due to increased activity or consumption in existing space, and changes in fuel sources for heating and cooling.
  
• What energy-conservation measures are already being implemented at your school? Is anything additional currently being planned? Have energy audits been conducted recently?
• What sources of alternative energy are or could be used? Explore the use of solar energy, alternative fuels, wind, etc.
• Cost-analysis: What was the school's total energy bill for the past year? How are energy costs and conservation programs funded?
• Have you noticed certain buildings that are overheated in the winter or overcooled during warm months? How are thermostats controlled and at what temperatures are they typically set?

Taking Action*
Here are a number of different measures that can help to improve energy-efficiency on campus:

• Improving lighting efficiency-by using compact fluorescent bulbs, reflectors, efficient ballasts, light timers, and room-occupancy sensors-for example.
• Incorporating passive solar building design and energy efficiency into future building plans, such as the use of "daylighting," a means of maximizing the use of natural light in the design of a building. In addition, planners may be encouraged to incorporate sage and renewable energy sources such as photovoltaics, cogeneration, wind, and fuel cells into campus energy plans.
• Increasing the efficiency of heating and cooling systems. A change of only a few degrees can create tremendous savings. Report overheating and overcooling of buildings to the physical plant manager.
• Improving insulation, windowpanes, weather-stripping, to ensure that heat and air-conditioning isn't escaping.

What else can you do?

• Promote campus community awareness and encourage participation in energy-conservation programs.
• Place "Turn off Light" stickers above switches to remind people not to waste energy in empty rooms.
• Plant trees strategically to improve the natural cooling of buildings in heat and provide windbreaks in cold.
• Help raise money for your school to invest in energy-saving appliances and programs, such as buying compact fluorescent bulbs.
• Establish an energy pledge and collect signatures from the student body and administration.
• Use your school's media-newspapers, magazines or journals, radio station-to raise awareness and educate. Write an article for a local newspaper or arrange an interview with a community reporter to spread the message beyond the boundaries of your campus.
• Create a permanent committee of students to work with the administration and energy managers over the course of the year for continual improvement.

Evaluation
Your work is not over yet! No program is complete without a critical evaluation of what occurred, from the planning process to your final results. This assessment will allow you and your school to see which actions were more and less effective. Finally, your critique can be the basis for planning future programs.

B'hatzlacha! (Good luck!)

* Parts of these sections were taken from the guide, Campus Ecology, Copyright 1993 by April Smith and the Tides Foundation/Student Environmental Action Coalition.


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