Daniel Cogan has a competitive streak. So when the senior in the Lundquist College of Business was approached to represent the University by one of the greenest companies in in contest for the title of “greenest campus,” how could he say no?
That’s how he and fellow business senior, Steven Strand wound up making it their job this term to prove that the University can top 14 other schools for the title of greenest campus in the nation.
Hewlett Packard was recently voted “the greenest Fortune 500 Company” in 2009 by Newsweek, and since then, Cogan thinks the company has been determined to prove the rest of the nation can
follow their lead.
HP’s new initiative, “The Power to Change,” is designed to raise environmental awareness and encourage students to power down their computers at the end of the day when they are not in use.
HP asked 15 universities across the nation to compete against each another for the title of greenest campus. Some of the contenders? University of Arizona, Washington State and Purdue. Cogan said that the University was one of the smallest schools approached by
the company.
“We are known to have a good reputation for being a green campus and have high sustainability ratings,” Cogan says. “They knew we had some competitive drive and that students would be interested in things like this.”
Strand is a club executive at the Warsaw Sports Business Club and thinks that the competition is exactly what the University looks for.
“‘The Power to Change lent itself naturally to what the University is all about,” Strand said. “It is great to utilize the product and also get positive feedback from the nation that students are engaged and want to make a difference.”
HP’s contest revolves around a computer widget students download off of the HP Web site onto their personal computers in order to track the amount of hours their computers are shut off.
The energy savings are calculated by comparing a user’s computer idle time with the expected idle time of a typical desktop or laptop user.
“Essentially all of the downloads are looped into a bucket for each university that is participating,” Strand said. “So every download the (University) gets plays a part in quantifying the total amount of energy saved on our campus.”
When downloading the widget, a student enters their respective school’s name that allows them to track how they are doing. As of Sunday, the University had 61 participants, while Michigan State University had 119 and the University of Texas had 116.
Cogan said he has never been particularly environmentally conscious, but his score reaches a high of 68 percent energy saved.
“The ability to save energy in an easy way and to prove the (University) is the greenest campus out there is a really cool
concept,” Cogan said.
Cogan and Strand have reached out to Greek Life this term to generate more involvement and awareness in the contest.
Tonight, the two are sitting in on fraternity chapter meetings, encouraging members to download the widget and plan future events within the Greek system.
Throughout the term, Strand said they are planning “Turn Off and Turn Out” events with the houses where students will hopefully download the widget knowing they can make a difference.
“There are a lot of people in fraternities and sororities,” Cogan says. “It would be outstanding to get every student in the dorms to register, but Greek Life was more open to working with us.”
Such events would include highlighter parties, concerts or other large-scale events that Cogan hopes to get students to attend.
At the end of fall term, HP will declare the college with the most participating students and largest tally of energy saved, “the greenest campus.” Cogan and Strand both see the title as “completely doable,” but will need a lot of help to get there.
HP estimates that if 100,000 users shut down their work computers at the end of each day, energy savings could total more than 2,680 kilowatt-hours, and carbon emissions reductions could total more than 3,500 pounds per day — the equivalent of eliminating more than 105 cars from the road each day.
“It is crazy how much energy is saved with this, by just shutting off your computers every night,” Cogan said. “My behavior has definitely changed now with this (widget).”
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