The government is making a huge push to incentivize universities across the country to go green and transform themselves into eco-friendly campuses. For the 2010-2011 academic year the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has engaged universities in the well established Green Power Partnership Program whereby it will track the colleges as well as athletic conferences with the highest green power purchases throughout the country.
The Green Power Partnership is an effort by the EPA to increase the amount of green power purchased by large energy users. This is a voluntary partnership where the EPA can help to educate its partners about their carbon footprint, energy use, and help them to reduce their negative environmental impact. The cost of green power supports the new field of renewable energy resources and decreases reliance on environmentally harmful energy sources. The green energy sources used by Green Power Partners are: solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, and low-impact hydro. This may be one of the easiest ways to make an organization, especially a campus, more eco-friendly.
At the end of the 2011 spring semester the EPA will award a Green Power Challenge Champion as well as a Green Power Challenge Conference Champion. The EPA will be tracking the progress of each participating university on its site throughout the competition. Conferences can enter the competition at any time so long as they meet the minimum requirements: at least one university in that conference is participating and there is a minimum of 10,000,000kWh of green energy purchased across the conference.
Currently, the top ten conferences are:
- Ivy League
- Big Ten Conference
- University Athletic Association
- Mountain West Conference
- Pacific-10 Conference
- Patriot League
- Association of Division III Independents
- Cascade Collegiate Conference
- Northeast- 10 Conference
- Great Northwest Athletic Conference
This list will be updated again in January 2011.
If your conference is not included approaching a dean about potential involvement will help to increase the success of the program as well as decrease your school’s negative environmental impact. This is a great opportunity to make your school a green campus.
