Council talks GCSU energy usage
The average monthly water bill for GCSU from October 2004 to September 2005 was around $17,787. The electricity bill was roughly six times that, averaging in around $98,754 each month. The natural gas and fuel oil averaged $28,035 and $1,995 per month, respectively.
All this coupled with the dramatic flux in gas prices that the economy has seen over the past two years seems to be cause for re-evaluation. It is in light of such staggering numbers that President Dorothy Leland proclaimed a special directive that resulted in the creation of the GCSU Campus Energy Use & Conservation Task Force.
Doug Oetter founded the committee just over a year ago in March 2006.
The task force committee meets bi-monthly to discuss and plan strategies for tackling the enormous task of reducing overall energy use and increasing the operating efficiency of the campus community. One of the primary goals of the committee is to educate the GCSU community and seek voluntary cooperation from students, faculty, and staff.
The long-term goal is to become certified as an environmentally sustainable campus by minimizing emission of greenhouse gases and eliminating wasteful energy practices. These things fall in line with the University Mission, and may provide a level of national distinction for the university.
Actions already suggested by the task force and implemented by Physical Plant staff include a conversion from T-12 to T-8 lighting in existing buildings, which can reportedly save up to 50 percent without compromising the quality of light. Also, they have replaced inefficient, dated windows in several of the older buildings on campus, such as Atkinson, Parks and the Old Governor’s Mansion. Both of these accomplishments stand among several others initiated by recommendations from the task force.
Individuals on campus may wonder what this really has to do with them. Oetter is currently researching archival data and reviewing specific numbers to see exactly how energy consumption indirectly affects individuals through such things as tuition and fees.
“Hundreds of thousands of dollars? That’s got to come from somewhere,” Oetter said. “People think they are not incurring costs personally, but everyone is paying for it. Everyone has to pay for the cost of (other individual’s) actions.”
Oetter suggested that simple actions such as turning off lights in empty rooms and unplugging unused appliances could make all the difference.
Renee Fontenot teaches a class titled Marketing, Advertising, and Communication that has taken on the task force as a client so that students can gain experience in real world marketing strategies while also giving benefit to the campus community and the goals of the task force.
April Reed, a senior mass communication major, is in Fontenot’s class. Reed is part of the group known as Marketing Masters, one of three teams in the class that have each been charged with the task of developing creative marketing strategies for their client.
“Energy use on campus is something that many students just do not think much about, and that is one of the things that the Marketing Masters would like to help the Task Force change,” Reed said. “If we could make students more conscious of the ways they can help cut down on unnecessary energy use, we should also be able to move them into action and convince them to do what they can to help.”
In gaining an understanding of the nature of this task force project, it seems important to note that it is not solely about making the campus efficient, rather it is about the greater good accomplished through successfully educating the members of the community about social responsibility and what that can mean for individuals who think for more than just themselves. Furthermore, it is not just about the GCSU campus, it is about the bigger picture of world in which we inhabit.
Posted by Colonnade Archives
on Apr 6 2007. Filed under News.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
