SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Santa Clara University received a 2011 Green Power Leadership Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The annual awards recognize the country’s leading green power users for their commitment and contribution to helping advance the development of the nation’s voluntary green power market. EPA presented SCU with the award at an event held in conjunction with the 2011 Renewable Energy Markets Conference held today in San Francisco, Calif.
Santa Clara University was one of only 10 organizations nationwide to receive a Leadership Award for its green power purchase. The award recognizes EPA Green Power Partners who distinguish themselves through purchases of green power from a utility green-pricing program, a competitive green marketer, or a renewable energy certificate (REC) supplier. SCU purchases more than 30 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power annually, which is equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of more than 4,000 passenger vehicles per year, or the CO2 emissions from the electricity use of nearly 3,000 average American homes annually.
“Purchasing green power helps our university become more sustainable, while also sending a message to others across the U.S. that supporting clean sources of electricity is a sound business decision and an important choice to fight climate change,” said Joe Sugg, assistant vice president of University Operations at SCU.
SCU is on track to becoming climate neutral by the end of 2015, as promised by SCU President Michael Engh, S.J. The university has launched many initiatives, including:
- Installing a solar thermal collector to heat water, a smart microgrid, a wind turbine, and solar panels;
- Building its first LEED certified building;
- Adopting water conservation practices such as using recycled water for irrigation, replacing old urinals and toilets with ones that are waterless or ones that use reclaimed water, and providing water filling stations around campus;
- Launching Zimride and Zipcar to encourage students, faculty, and staff reduce the number of single occupancy vehicles on campus.
- Creating a paperless writing center that uses an interactive whiteboard, allowing students to project text from their laptop onto the board via Bluetooth technology;
- Encouraging students to donate items that would have otherwise ended up in dumpsters at the end of the academic year.
SCU also offers 200 courses related to sustainability or environmental studies.
You can learn more about SCU’s sustainability initiatives at www.scu.edu/sustainability.
About Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California’s Silicon Valley, offers its more than 8,800 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, theology, and engineering, plus master’s and law degrees and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. master’s universities, California’s oldest operating higher education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see www.scu.edu.
About EPA’s Green Power Partnership
The Green Power Partnership is a voluntary program that encourages organizations to buy green power as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with electricity use. The Partnership currently has more than 1,300 Partner organizations voluntarily purchasing billions of kilowatt-hours of green power annually. Partners include a wide variety of leading organizations such as Fortune 500® companies, small and medium-sized businesses, local, state, and federal governments, and colleges and universities. For additional information, please visit http://www.epa.gov/greenpower.
About the Green Power Leadership Awards
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) co-sponsors the annual Green Power Leadership Awards in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy and the Center for Resource Solutions. EPA recognizes winners in the following awards categories: Green Power Partner of the Year, On-site Generation, Green Power Purchasing, and Green Power Community of the Year. EPA’s Purchaser awards recognize the exceptional achievement among EPA Green Power Partners who distinguish themselves through green power procurement, market leadership, overall green power strategy, and overall impact on the green power market. The Awards are held in conjunction with the Renewable Energy Markets Conference. For additional information, please visit http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/awards/.