About Green Campus
Where We Are...
We currently have is currently in place on sixteen University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) campuses:
The Alliance Green Campus Program empowers college students to be tomorrow’s energy efficiency leaders. Currently employing over 75 interns each year, the program engages students in building pathways to green careers, realizing measurable energy savings, infusing energy and energy efficiency concepts into academic curricula, and promoting energy efficiency awareness. Green Campus interns work closely with faculty, staff, administrators, and other students to engage them in energy efficiency projects.
Program Goals
The Alliance to Save Energy’s Green Campus Program is a student-led initiative that educates the campus community on energy efficiency, achieves energy savings, and encourages the next generation of energy efficiency professionals by:
- Building pathways to green careers through trainings, mentorships, internships, volunteer opportunities, and project-based learning;
- Realizing measurable energy savings through research into and implementation of energy efficiency best practices, educational campaigns, and facilitation of retrofits;
- Infusing energy and energy efficiency concepts into academic curricula;
- Promoting energy efficiency outreach through educational campaigns.
Program Structure and Resources
- Green Campus interns work closely with administrators, faculty, and staff to create a strategic plan that addresses each of the program’s goals and is uniquely tailored to the needs, challenges, and strengths of their school.
- Green Campus is a student-driven program; each Green Campus school has funding for forty hours of intern time per week.
- The Alliance to Save Energy recruits, selects, and oversees between three and six interns per campus; with supervision from Alliance staff, and input from campus staff, these interns are primarily responsible for the day-to-day implementation of Green Campus at their school.
- The Alliance supports Green Campus interns through continuous remote consultation, regular on-campus visits, and biannual program-wide convergences.
- Interns at Green Campus schools have an operating budget that they use to secure space for events, incentivize student conservation, and purchase new metering equipment.
Program Rationale
- Educational campaigns can result in significant energy savings by changing behaviors and purchasing decisions.
- Students are effective advocates on college campus, able to reach their peers and high-level decision makers.
- Students can offer valuable assistance in greening campus operating procedures; student research can defer informaton gathering costs inherent in switching from conventional to more sustainable practices.
- Green Campus enriches students' educational experience while allowing them to take more responsibility for campus operations.
