By Matt RadlerThe Daily Northwestern
In a close contest that came down to the last two days, Willard Residential College beat out Slivka Residential College of Science and Engineering to win the second annual Green Cup in their division. The Cultural and Community Studies Residential College won its division by a wide margin. Students for Ecological & Environmental Development, the contest's organizer, announced the winners Tuesday.
The university's residence halls competed to reduce electricity and water consumption over two weeks, from April 9 to 23. The buildings were grouped into two divisions, those with dining halls and those without. The winner with a dining hall, Willard, reduced its electricity use by 7.4 percent and its water use by 4 percent, while CCS cut its electric consumption 47.4 percent and its water consumption 16.4 percent.
SEED Green Cup chairman Brian Chaikind said this year's competition was more successful than last year's, with more student participation and bigger reductions.
"We're trying to show that small, day-to-day actions can have a huge impact, and every year this contest reaches a bigger group of freshmen and sophomores," said Chaikind, a Weinberg senior. "You can save a tremendous amount of electricity (and) stop the release of a tremendous amount of carbon dioxide."
SEED awarded points to each hall based on its combined reduction in water and electricity, with one point added for each percentage point cut. Each day, Facilities Management recorded each hall's use and give the numbers to SEED. An additional five points were added if a hall made a poster promoting the competition, a move that gave Slivka its initial lead over Willard.
The combined campus dorms' efforts reduced the use of electricity 19,634 kilowatt-hours over the last two weeks, Chaikind said.
"That's 12 metric tons of carbon dioxide," he said. "The electricity we saved could power an extra dorm of 174 people for two weeks."
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