California Green Campuses Win Energy Efficiency Awards

Winners of the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) Higher Education Energy Efficiency Partnership Best Practices in Sustainable Operations competition were announced this month. Congratulations to the Green Campus Programs at UC Irvine and Humboldt State, who received the awards for the category of Student Energy Conservation Programs. Awards were presented during the UC/CSU Sustainability Conference, held June 24 - 26 at UC Santa Barbara.

Four additional campuses earned Honorable Mentions, include three Green Campus Programs: CSU Chico, US Santa Cruz, and CSU San Bernardino. CSU Monterey Bay also won an Honorable Mention. This marks the third year that Green Campus Programs have won both awards in this category.

UC Irvine won for its broad range of energy efficiency activities on campus, including innovative strategies for educating laboratory users about how to save energy in fume hoods, implementing a program to reduce energy use, measuring energy savings, and providing incentives to the winning laboratories.

Humboldt State won for, among other activities, the development of a program of campus office audits, which saved approximately 30 percent in electricity and demonstrated best practices in office audit procedures. In addition, its 16-minute video, Phantom Hunters, won accolades from award judges and conference attendees as well.