Campus Conservation Nationals

About CCN

Campus Conservation Nationals (CCN) is the largest nationwide electricity and water reduction competition on college and university campuses. CCN gives a common voice and motivation to hundreds of thousands of students, all working together to reduce consumption and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

CCN is an opportunity to organize students and staff, host educational events, and challenge your friends to participate in fun events that can have an immediate and lasting impact on your school’s carbon emissions and campus culture.

Throughout the competition we take weekly electricity readings to determine which residence hall complexes are doing the best in reducing their electric usage.

Goals of CCN

• Engage, educate, motivate, and empower students to conserve resources in their residences.
• Achieve measurable reductions in electricity and water use, preventing thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide from being emitted.
• Foster a culture of conservation within your campus community, and propel your campus sustainability initiatives.
• Participate in a program that enables students to teach themselves conservation behaviors that they can employ in the home and workplace in the future.
• Enable students to develop leadership, community organizing, and career development skills.

It’s All About Behavior Change!

This competition offers valuable educational opportunities, such as enabling students to teach themselves conservation behaviors, as well as environmental and economic benefits. While most schools recognize the value of upgrading infrastructure as a mechanism for increasing resource use efficiency, changing the behavior of building occupants is a critical component of conservation. Above all, Campus Conservation Nationals is designed to empower the future generation of energy and environmental leaders, and foster a culture of conservation within campus communities.

Campus Conservation Nationals 2015

Campus Conservation Nationals 2015 is taking place during the Spring 2015 semester, so do your best to reduce our consumption and take our University to the top!  There are several ways that you can help us to reduce our consumption of both water and electricity.  Here is a short list of some ways that you can make a difference!

• Unplug unused appliances.

• Turn off your lights when you are not in the room.

• Use sleep and hibernate modes on your laptop so that your computer shuts down during periods of activity.

• Turn your computer off at night.

• Use cold water when washing your clothes.

• Turn off the sink when you are brushing your teeth.

• Take a 5 minute shower.

• Use surge protectors or power strips for appliances to allow you to shut off all of them at once.

• Use CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulbs instead of incandescent light bulbs.

• Place lamps in corners of rooms so light is reflected off two walls, reducing the need to turn on more lights when it gets dark.