10 Days Celebration: Thursday, April 26

Celebrate the energy and water saving success of our South Campus residence halls.

Campus Conservation Nationals award ceremony

South Campus residents showed that small changes can make a big difference during the Campus Conservation Nationals in April.

From March 30 to April 20, the students in the six first-year residence halls (Bostwick, Johnson, Luter, Collins, South, and Babcock) participated in the Campus Conservation Nationals 2012, a nationwide energy and water-use reduction competition among more than 150 colleges and universities around the country.

The national competition, organized by the US Green Building Council, Lucid Design Group, the Alliance to Save Energy, and the National Wildlife Federation, encouraged campuses to give students real-time feedback on how their actions reduced the overall energy and water footprints of their residence halls. Wake Forest’s new campus-wide dashboard system  provided that feedback.

Bostwick and Johnson Hall residents won the energy reduction division of the university’s competition.  They collectively reduced their energy consumption by 12.2 percent over the three-week period.

Collins Hall residents dominated in the water division by reducing their water consumption by 16.2 percent. This placed the university nationally in the top five schools with the greatest percent reduction in water.

In total, the university’s first-year residents saved 8,445 kWh of energy and 104,706 gallons of water. Nationwide, participants in the competition saved enough energy to take 151 average-sized homes off the electrical grid for one year.

The campus competition was sponsored by Facilities and Campus Services and Residence Life and Housing.