A monthlong competition between dorms to improve energy efficiency kicked off Thursday, motivating students to turn off lights, computers and televisions in order to win a Foosball table.
The Green Cup, initiated by members of Students for Ecological and Environmental Development, will chart every dorm’s energy bills from October to November and award the Foosball table to the dorm that makes the most per-person decrease, said Rob Kutter, Green Cup co-organizer and a McCormick sophomore.
Lillian Eichner, another co-organizer and SEED member, said much of the inspiration for Green Cup came from Harvard University’s energy efficiency initiatives.
“Harvard was one of the first colleges nationwide to become more electrically efficient,” said Eichner, a Weinberg sophomore. “Their program is much more comprehensive than ours.”
Harvard encourages environmentally conscientious tactics year-’round, including recycling and energy and water conservation.
Eichner hopes Green Cup will push NU toward the same goal by encouraging people to be more energy efficient in November. She hopes to expand Green Cup the following month.
Eichner also said SEED would love to get administration support, but that she believes the group needs a successful year behind it first.
In an attempt to inform and excite students around campus about Green Cup, SEED members have begun chalking along Sheridan Road and passing out fliers in buildings and dorms.
To inform all of the dorms on campus, SEED member Grant Pauly, a McCormick sophomore, spoke with residence hall presidents at their weekly meeting.
Most dorm presidents responded with enthusiasm, Eichner said.
“The Green Cup program is being enthusiastically received by dorm government members and the residents of Allison Hall,” hall President Hayley Friedman wrote in an e-mail. “The success of past environmental awareness projects in our dorm, such as a recycling program that is now being taken campuswide by last year’s recycling chairs, has only motivated all of us to attempt to rally behind the Green Cup program.”
But other dorm presidents have found it more difficult not only to spread the information but also to excite their peers.
“Considering we are one of the larger dorms on campus, I feel like it is a great program with good intentions,” McCulloch Hall President Sean Garland said. “However, it’s difficult to coordinate an activity with so many people who all have their own agendas. I wish the program had been publicized earlier, because when I brought it up at the executive board meeting, there was an overall lack of enthusiasm related to the lack of publicity.”
But Eichner said she has received nothing but positive encouragement.
“If we can get people to get used to doing simple things like turning off computers and lights, after a month it will become a habit,” she said.
