American University’s “Do It in the Dark” and “Kill A Watt” Competitions

American University’s annual residence hall energy competition, now in its third year, was expanded for the first time to include office, classroom, and laboratory buildings as well. These dual competitions, Do It in the Dark (residence halls), and the Kill A Watt Challenge (academic and administrative buildings), challenged the AU community from November 12th to 30th to reduce their electricity consumption to see who would be crowned champion and earn the ultimate green campus bragging rights — and reduce they did! Each building sought to reduce its consumption against a comparable period from last year, resulting in:

• 138,509 kilowatt hours of electricity saved campus-wide
• 464,435 tons of carbon dioxide kept out of the atmosphere – that’s like taking 44 cars off the road, planting 5,400 young trees, or taking 31 houses off the grid*
• $15,421 dollars saved

Participants in the competitions were encouraged to take the Pledge to Conserve Energy, which provided five helpful energy-saving tips to propel them to victory, and entered them into a raffle to win a solar messenger bag that uses a solar panel to charge small electronics. Click here to see the full competition results on AU’s online energy dashboard.

*Data from EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalency Calculator

Source: American University’s Office of Sustainability December newsletter. Reprinted with permission.