Ingles, Floyd, Draper claim 2013 RU conservation crown

The residents of Ingles and Floyd halls are the most energy efficient among the 3,000 students who live on the RU campus, and Draper Hall's residents are the most water efficient.

Those are the results of a competition among RU's 14 residence halls in the 2013 Campus Conservation Nationals (CCN,) a contest to curtail electricity and water consumption at colleges and universities

During the competition that ended on Friday, Feb. 23, Draper Hall slashed its water usage by almost 12 percent, or more than 4,000 gallons, easily taking the campus title in that category. Draper dwellers swamped their nearest competitors, the residents of Trinkle Hall, who cut their water consumption by more than 5 percent. Residents of all 14 halls cut their water consumption by more than 9,000 gallons during the three-week contest.

Ingles and Floyd residence halls tied for the title of most miserly in use of electricity, cutting their power consumption by 2.5 percent. With a 1.3 percent reduction, Jefferson Hall was the only other residence hall to reduce its power use during the contest.

"Congratulations to the winners," said Julio Stephens, RU's sustainability coordinator. "The CCN is always a fun way to get the campus involved in being more efficient with water and electricity usage. The residents of these buildings set a good example for all of us."

The RU participants were among nearly 250,000 students at 150 colleges and universities across the United States and Canada to join in, preventing the emission of more than 89 tons of carbon dioxide by consuming nearly 200,000 kWh of electricity less than last year in more than 1,800 buildings. A kilowatt-hour is a unit of energy equal to 1,000 watt-hours and is the billing unit most commonly used for energy delivered to consumers by electric utilities.