RLCs compete in energy challenge

By Jack Wagner

Keep your energy consumption low and you could be at Sky High.

Adopting new ways to go green is a key issue of concern for Santa Clara students and the university. To meet this concern, the Office of Sustainability kicked off its first annual Residence Hall Energy Challenge this past Sunday.

This challenge consists of the various residence halls attempting to reduce the amount of electricity they consume over the course of three weeks, with the winners receiving a trip for 50 members of the Residence Life Community to go to Sky High, an indoor facility filled with trampolines on the floors and the walls.

The winning RLC gets 50 tickets automatically for winning and will gain bonus tickets for every ten tons of emissions they reduce. The Sky High tickets will be distributed by the winning dorm's Resident Director.

"We're trying to bring that awareness in a really fun way," said Lindsey Cromwell, the sustainability coordinator for the Office of Sustainability. "The idea is that the winning RLC gets a number of tickets for winning -- just for winning. But if they do really well, they get bonus tickets."

The competition is taking place though Saturday, Mar. 6. The slogan for this year's competition is "Watch your energy savings grow-in-the-dark!"

The participating residence halls will have their energy consumption measured against the same building's electricity usage from previous years.

"Swig this year is competing against Swig from the past two years," Cromwell said. "(Swig) 2010 is competing against itself."

To keep track of how they are doing and where their building stands, participants will be able to visit an online graphing system that shows each building's energy consumption in real time.

These energy consumption graphs can be reached by going through the Sustainability at SCU page of the Santa Clara Web site, or by directly visiting http://university-operations.scu.edu/energy.

Residence halls will be ranked based on their percentage decrease in energy consumption every week.

The overall winning RLC will be the one that has reduced its energy use the most over the course of the three-week challenge period.

The three-week challenge will also feature other activities designed to spread the importance of energy consumption among the various Santa Clara RLCs.

These activities include a Low Carbon Diet Dinner that will feature dinner options with less beef content and more local foods.

It will take place in Market Square on Feb. 24 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Regular menu items will be offered, Cromwell said, but there will also be stations with low carbon options.

Also, a Save Rave dance will take place in the Bronco on Feb. 24 from 9 p.m. to midnight. Free glow necklaces will be given out to the first 100 people and the RLC with the biggest attendance will get bonus points towards the competition.

The Office of Sustainability isn't proposing dramatic changes in how students consume electricity; rather they are just trying to diminish unnecessary usage and excesses.

Their suggestions on how to reduce electricity consumption most efficiently is to engage in energy-conserving activities.

These involve simply turning off the lights after leaving the room, turning off computers when they are not in use and unplugging electronics that are not in use as well.

"If I'm turning my computer to energy-saving mode when it's not in use, I'm saving energy for everybody in the building," Cromwell said.

Around campus the general consensus from students is that this challenge is going to be highly worthwhile and the efforts by Santa Clara to become more environmentally friendly are a great characteristic that this school has.

"We need to preserve the earth for future generations," Freshman Kevin Vu said about the benefits of the Residence Hall Energy Challenge.

The Office of Sustainability created a Facebook group called Residence Energy Challenge 2010. Tips will be distributed to the Facebook group's members on ways to conserve energy in order to help their RLC team win.

Brittany Benjamin contributed reporting to this article. Contact Jack Wagner at jcwagner@scu.edu or (408) 554-4546.