A new two-part "Phoenix Cup" contest sponsored by the Office of Sustainability gives students, faculty and staff an opportunity to win prizes by making team efforts to reduce their environmental impacts.
A new contest aimed at reducing Elon University’s ecological footprint begins this month when teams of students, faculty and staff will compete to see who cuts back the most power they use across campus.
Groups compete again in the spring with a focus on landfill waste reduction. Taken together, the Office of Sustainability will award the Phoenix Cup, a trophy for the two-step contest that takes the place of the university’s previous POWERless Competition.
“Phoenix Cup: Energy” runs Sept. 17 – Oct. 8 with an emphasis on team collaboration and peer motivation.
Teams of three to 10 people can register with their Eco-Rep or, if taking part as faculty and staff, with the Office of Sustainability. Teammates complete tasks from a checklist to earn points. Any student who participates is placed into a raffle for $25 in Phoenix Cash. Student teams that complete the competition are also eligible for a prize raffle. The student team with the most points per person will win solar chargers and other prizes.
Buildings with the most energy reduction can have a donation made in their name to one of several charitable causes including the World Wildlife Fund’s Adopt an Animal program. Checklists, prize details and additional information about the Phoenix Cup can be found on the Office of Sustainability’s website.
Only students who actively participate have a chance of winning prizes. In addition, participants are competing with themselves by trying to use fewer kWhs of electricity with each passing week. This places more emphasis on building occupant behavior and less on the energy efficiency of a particular building, which had been the goal of POWERless.
Elon University senior Amy Simmons worked with Mark Terrell, Physical Plant utilities manager, on energy modeling to demonstrate that in some Loy Center buildings, energy can be reduced by at least 10 percent by changing behaviors.
“Hopefully the Phoenix Cup will provide a fun way for people to become more aware of their own behaviors and provide tools for creating energy saving habits, because we can’t achieve Elon’s sustainability goals without participation of the campus community,” said Jessica Bilecki, the university’s sustainability education and outreach coordinator.