Campus Conservation Nationals (CCN) is the first nationwide electricity and water reduction competition on college and university campuses. In its second year, CCN gives a common voice and motivation to thousands of students, all working together to reduce consumption and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

 

How it Works

 

Between February 6th and April 23rd participating colleges and universities will compete to achieve the greatest possible energy and water reductions in residence halls. Schools will choose to compete against buildings on their own campus, in a state or regional competition, or against a select group of peer institutions, with savings from all participants accumulating as we strive to achieve a national challenge goal of 1 gigawatt-hour!

 

Using Lucid’s Building Dashboard®, schools will be able to instantly compare performance, share winning strategies and track standings among the leading schools and buildings.

 

CCN 2012 is an opportunity to organize students and staff, host educational events, and challenge your friends to participate in fun events that can have an immediate and lasting impact on your school’s carbon emissions and campus culture.

 

CCN Goals 

• Engage, educate, motivate, and empower students to conserve resources in their residences.
• Achieve measurable reductions in electricity and water use, preventing thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide from being emitted.
• Foster a culture of conservation within your campus community, and propel your campus sustainability initiatives.
• Participate in a program that enables students to teach themselves conservation behaviors that they can employ in the home and workplace in the future.
• Enable students to develop leadership and community organizing skills.

 

Why Energy and Water Use in Buildings?

On residential college and university campuses, activities that take place in buildings typically account for the vast majority of energy use, water use, and total greenhouse gas emissions associated with the institution’s ecological footprint (e.g., greater than 90% for all three at Oberlin College, Heede and Swisher 2009).

 

Prior research (Cialdini 1993) has shown that resource reduction competitions in residential housing provide an important means of engaging, educating, motivating and empowering students to conserve resources and foster behavior change.

 

It’s All About Behavior Change

This expanded competition offers valuable educational opportunities, such as enabling students to teach themselves conservation behaviors, as well as environmental and economic benefits. While most schools recognize the value of upgrading infrastructure as a mechanism for increasing resource use efficiency, changing the behavior of building occupants is also recognized as a critical component of conservation.

 

Above all, Campus Conservation Nationals is designed to empower the future generation of energy and environmental leaders, and foster a culture of conservation within campus communities.

 

CCN 2010 Results

CCN is building on a successful pilot, hosted in 2010. From November 1-19, 2010, forty participating colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada reduced electricity consumption by 508,000 kilowatt-hours, saving $50,200 and averting 816,000 pounds of CO₂ from the atmosphere.

 

 

Have more questions? Check out the FAQ page.