As a Top Ten finisher, 91短视频 was awarded the grand prize of a one-year license to equip two buildings on campus with competition sponsor 鈥檚 energy monitoring hardware and software.

The accomplishment was particularly notable. “As a first-time participant, 91短视频 placed solidly in the top 10 reducers, consuming 21% less electricity in just three weeks,鈥� said Lucid CEO Vladi Shunturov. 鈥淭he commitment from 91短视频鈥檚 students and staff is truly inspiring.”

The win is 鈥渁n affirmation of the 91短视频’s long-running commitment to reducing our school’s energy use,鈥� said campus sustainability coordinator .

The end result of the CCN competition not only raised awareness about individual consumer habits, but resulted in a substantial savings of resources and finances. The competition monitored 1,374 buildings used by approximately 345,000 student, faculty and staff, and reported a total savings of 1.9 million kilowatt hours, 394,000 gallons of water, and $290,000.

According to the CCN website, this is the equivalent of removing 182 homes from the grid for one year, saving 1.5 million one-liter bottles of water, and averting 2.4 million pounds of carbon dioxide.

CCN, in its fifth year, is hosted by the at the , Lucid, the and the .

Campus ‘climate’ contributes

From March 8-28, ten campus buildings were monitored for energy usage. Roselawn came out on top with a 40.2 percent reduction, followed by Maplewood (39.7 percent) and Elmwood (37.3), Hartzler Library (28) and Cedarwood (23.2).

The results make sense to Lantz-Trissel: such as Roselawn, and the LEED-certified dormitories 鈥渁re carefully designed to heat and cool efficiently in small zones, where older buildings have fewer thermostats and less flexibility and response to users or outside temperature changes.鈥�

However, plays a large role in this success. 鈥淲e also have a strong community ethic to conserve and care for creation, which means in a competition the community responds to the challenge to reduce energy or recycle and 91短视频 usually outperforms our peer schools.鈥�

, whose job is to implement energy management, efficiency and sustainability measures as 91短视频鈥檚 building automation coordinator, had some idea of how competitive faculty, staff and residents were getting when he heard some voicing disappointment during March that 鈥渢heir building wasn鈥檛 doing better.鈥�

That bodes well for next year, Sachs said, when he plans to implement a social media campaign to raise awareness and get more people involved.

The competition also includes regional sub-competitions, such as the Big Ten Unplugged, the New York Negawatt Challenge, the California State University Conservation League, and the Campus ConseRVAtion Nationals, featuring three Richmond area schools.

Sachs hopes to invite Shenandoah Valley area universities and colleges to compete next year. He鈥檚 also pondering a friendly rivalry among Mennonite colleges.

鈥淚t鈥檚 amazing to watch the influence of CCN continue to grow,鈥� said Chelsea Hodge, director of programs at Lucid. 鈥淓very year, more and more students and staff prove through CCN that they are committed to using behavior change tools to achieve short and long term reductions in their campuses鈥� carbon footprints.鈥�

Publicizing user habits

The grand prize of Lucid hardware and software will complement the monitoring system already present on campus, according to Sachs. Preliminary plans will enable a more public showcase of campus sustainability efforts, with television screens projecting constant data to building users.

鈥淲e were planning to place one monitor in the , which gets a lot of foot traffic and would be a nice feature for that building鈥檚 users,鈥� Sachs said, adding that he鈥檇 also like to track energy use and trends in the newly renovated building.

That feedback will help users adjust their behaviors, 鈥渕uch the same way a fitness monitoring app might help a person be more active, lose weight, or work to improve in a sport,鈥� says Lantz-Trissel. 鈥淏ut in just the same way as a fitness app, data monitoring is only so useful, and improvement is up to the habits and behaviors of the building’s occupants.鈥�

91短视频 has a history of engaging its competitive spirit towards sustainability efforts: the campus recently , and has .

Last year, the university was awarded a silver ranking by the , based on its sustainability initiatives in operations, curriculum, planning and other areas.

Committed to eco-great buildings

With the completion of renovations to in time for the Fall 2011 semester, all three residence halls surrounding the 鈥淲oods quad鈥� at 91短视频 鈥� Cedarwood, Elmwood and Maplewood 鈥� have been constructed or renovated to meet LEED Gold standards for environmental sustainability.

and residence halls have LEED 鈥淕old鈥� certifications from the , with the Gold certification for Maplewood pending in the winter of 2012.

As of July 2012, 91短视频鈥檚 two LEED Gold-certified buildings were among just 123 such residence halls on university campuses across the country. Besides the ones at 91短视频, there is just one other LEED Gold building on any Virginia university campus, according to the U.S. Green Building Council.

Cedarwood, built to replace the old Oakwood residence hall, opened in the fall of 2009 and was the first to receive the LEED Gold certification. Elmwood was renovated in time for the Spring 2011 semester.

Local and recycled materials

Green features of the residence halls include the use of numerous recycled materials, recycling of nearly all construction waste, high-efficiency lighting and plumbing fixtures, extensive natural lighting, low-VOC materials and an emphasis on locally sourced building materials.

Surrounding the buildings is landscaping with native plants that require no permanent irrigation system and the use of 鈥渂iorentention鈥� beds around the residence halls to control storm water runoff.

Highly efficient 鈥渧ariable refrigerant flow鈥� heat pump systems and other features like efficient exhaust systems afford the two dorms energy cost reductions of about 30 percent compared to conventional new construction. Additionally, after the first year of operation, electrical use in the dorms is more than 15 percent further below those projections.

Each room in the new residence halls is equipped with a switch that automatically turns off the room鈥檚 heat or AC when the windows are open, allowing students to let in fresh air without wasting climate-controlled air from the inside.

鈥淓ven though we鈥檝e upgraded these dorms and made them fully climate controlled, our energy use across campus has gone down,鈥� says , director of .

Reduced energy consumption

After the new constructions and renovation, says Kurtz, 91短视频 added about 80,000 square feet of new air-conditioned space (none of the Woods dormitories were previously air-conditioned.) At the same time, the campus鈥� total electric and gas bill, which averaged an inflation-adjusted $572,000 per year between 1999 and 2008, fell to $519,000 for the 2011-2012 fiscal year 鈥� a 9 percent reduction in campus-wide energy costs since the overhaul of the Woods quad.

, an architecture firm based in Mishawaka, Indiana, designed all three buildings and worked with 91短视频 to meet the stringent LEED standards.

From an energy consumption standpoint, heating, cooling and powering buildings on campus consumed about 45,000 British thermal units (Btu) per square foot of building space 鈥� a common way of measuring energy use 鈥� over the course of the 2011-2012 fiscal year. That鈥檚 a 26-percent improvement from 1999 to 2008, when 91短视频 used a yearly average of 61,000 Btu per square foot across the entire campus.

91短视频 consumed about 49,000 Btu-per-square-foot on campus during the calendar year 2011, according to data from the , or APPA. The average figure that year for 38 American universities with enrollment between 1,000 and 2,000 students that participated in the APPA survey was 89,000 Btu per square foot.

Because of several concurrent sustainability initiatives on campus, however, including the , it is difficult to measure the precise impact of the dorms alone on 91短视频鈥檚 total energy use and cost.

A year ago, 91短视频 gained the largest solar deployment in Virginia, with 328 photovoltaic panels installed on the roof of its library. Other 鈥渇irsts鈥� at 91短视频 on behalf of the environment include: recycling collected by a bicycle-pulled trailer, biofiltration beds to protect a stream that feeds the Chesapeake Bay, and campus landscaping with edible vegetation.

LEED certification for 91短视频鈥檚 new Cedarwood dormitory represents one of the highest environmental standards that construction can reach.

鈥淭he gold certification for Cedarwood, along with the pending LEED certifications for the renovated Elmwood and Maplewood residence halls, emphasizes 91短视频’s strategic plan of sustainability,鈥� said , vice president for finance at 91短视频.

The confers its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certifications鈥攁t the basic, silver, gold or platinum level鈥攐n buildings that meet its rigorous standards for environmental sustainability.

Rick Fedrizzi, president, CEO & founding chair of USGBC, praised 91短视频鈥檚 accomplishment: 鈥淎s the newest member of the LEED family of green buildings, Cedarwood dormitory is an important addition to the growing strength of the green building movement. With each new LEED-certified building, we get one step closer to USGBC鈥檚 vision of a sustainable-built environment within a generation.

Cedarwood features

LEED points are awarded for based on the number and type of “green” related systems or designs used in the building process. Cedarwood accumulated 45 points, six more than the minimum ranking for gold.

Cedarwood uses extensive natural lighting; flooring made of recycled and natural materials; a bioretention filtration system to manage rainwater runoff; a bike shed with a “green” landscaped roof; native landscaping around the building itself; and low-flow water fixtures.

Buildings in the United States are responsible for 39 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, 40 percent of energy consumption and 13 percent of water consumption, according to USGBC statistics.

Construction of Cedarwood was made possible through collaboration with several partners鈥攊n particular the , long-time architects for 91短视频 based in Mishawaka, Ind., and , of Harrisonburg. and contractors, who have been involved in 91短视频 projects since 1991, also played key roles.

The total cost of Cedarwood was $6 million.

“The sustainability emphasis of Cedarwood fits with 91短视频’s mission, from Micah 6:8, to 鈥榙o justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God,鈥� with each other and with creation,” said, director of 91短视频鈥檚 physical plant. “It’s a place where students experience community as they prepare to serve and lead in a global context.”

More information on Cedarwood and sustainability at 91短视频 can be found at

Aaron Yoder 鈥�01 owns ., a Harrisonburg home construction and remodeling company that uses the EarthCraft House program. Compared to conventional building, EarthCraft House projects generate less waste during construction, require less energy for climate control and demand less ongoing maintenance. A M Yoder & Co. applies these techniques to a wide variety of houses. The company can build a home that uses 40 percent less energy, and an 8,000-square-foot luxury home that is far less resource-intensive than a conventionally built mansion.

Benjamin Meredith 鈥�92 is owner and president of (Harrisonburg), which conducts home and small business energy audits to identify the best ways to reduce energy consumption. It also provides third-party verification for homes built to Energy Star or EarthCraft green building standards. Meredith uses construction expertise and specialized equipment 鈥� duct blasters, infrared cameras 鈥� to understand and improve a building鈥檚 energy usage. 鈥淩esidential buildings consume approximately 22 percent of the energy consumed in the United States,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t is my job to help people figure out how they can reduce their energy consumption footprint.鈥�

Bradley Yoder 鈥�02 is project adviser for , based in Durham, North Carolina. It builds all its new homes to the of the . Smart and efficient homes, Yoder says, are a key part of living well-balanced lives: 鈥淚f you鈥檙e careful about building [people鈥檚] homes responsibly, efficiently and healthily, [they] are better equipped to do what they want with their lives.鈥� One of Bradley鈥檚 colleagues, John Price, class of 鈥�76, is the 鈥渂uild lead鈥� at Build Sense, overseeing several of the company鈥檚 construction crews. Through another company, Carolina X Wall, Yoder also sells insulating concrete forms, an efficient and eco-friendly building material.

In Fulks Run, Virginia, Heather Bauman 鈥�04 and Justin Thomas Yoder, class of 鈥�03, live in a passive solar house, with supplementary heat from a masonry stove. It has a lightcolored metal roof to ward off summer heat. Built by Justin and his father, Kenton E. Yoder, the house stays comfortable during summers without air conditioning, says Heather.