For the tenth year running, schools from the Alliance to Save Energy’s (Alliance) PowerSave Campus Program are being honored with 2015 Best Practice Awards for their energy efficiency work by the California Higher Education Sustainability Conference (CHESC).

CSU Fullerton won the Student Sustainability Program Award for its Campus Wide Sink Audit & Aerator Retrofit. CSU Chico and UC Berkeley were honored with the Student Energy Efficiency Program Award for the Wildcat Sustainability Showdown, Campus Conservation Nationals and LED Microscope Retrofit programs, respectively. The awards were presented during this year’s CHESC, running from July 20 – 24 at San Francisco University.

CHESC intends to highlight the achievements California campuses have made through innovative efficiency projects, showcase specific projects and provide campus staff with inspiration and ideas for best practice projects that could be transferable to other campuses.

PowerSave Campus interns at CSU Fullerton worked with facility staff to audit every sink on campus —nearly 550 total — to identify water saving opportunities. Soon after aerators were installed, the project had already saved 1.8 million gallons of water.

CSU Chico is being honored for their impressive energy savings and student participation achieved during the nationally coordinated Campus Conservation Nationals (CCN) program, an impressive program in which over 1,200 student residents have participated over the past three years. At UC Berkeley, the student-let microscope project replaced inefficient HID metal halide bulbs with LED lamps. In addition to the immediate energy saving benefits, participants observed that the upgrades have led to larger conversations about laboratory efficiency on campus.

“Today’s students are becoming more aware of energy use and are more engaged in strategies for increasing energy efficiency. I’m thrilled that so many college campuses have embraced the Alliance’s PowerSave model to foster and support this interest, and I want to extend my congratulations to the three campuses being honored for their work today,” said Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy.  

Alliance’s Director of Campus Programs Renee Lafrenz added, “It is a great honor for these three PowerSave Campus participants to be rewarded amongst many other accomplished groups. I look forward to seeing how future students continue to surprise and inspire.”

The full list of 2015 Best Practice Award Winners can be found here: https://www.cahigheredusustainability.org/awards/2015Winners.php#.Vaa1tflVhBc