|
Energy Savings Plan Summer 2013 The Baruch College Task Force on Sustainability, Vice President Katharine Cobb’s Campus Facilities Team and the Campus Operations staff are working to make Baruch a green and sustainable campus and have developed a plan to save energy, limit our carbon emissions and prudently manage our finances.
This year, for the first time, we are responsible for managing our own energy budget. In the past the state reimbursed us for our energy-related expenses. Going forward we will receive an allotment designated for energy needs and from that amount we will manage our energy usage. This year we have been allocated $6.2 million. Our new local control of our energy budget will help us take positive steps in limiting our carbon emissions. Any energy savings achieved can be kept and re-directed to other important College initiatives.
We have put in place structural changes to limit our energy usage including the installation of new energy efficient computer switches, a plan to maximize the efficiency of our chillers, LED lighting throughout the Vertical Campus, and the repair and replacement of room motion sensors to control lighting. We also plan to make energy use information available on the Baruch College website.
These structural changes are important but we need your help. Summer is a time when our energy usage reaches a peak due to our need for air conditioning. Our energy bills are a combination of usage and demand; we pay a premium for energy use during peak demand periods. A reduction in our energy use this summer during peak demand periods will save money and limit our carbon emissions.
Here is what each of us can do:
• If a classroom, office or conference room is not occupied, make sure that lights and A/C units are turned off.
• Turn off all lights, equipment and A/C units at the end of the day.
• Reduce the loss of “phantom energy”. Pull plugs from the wall or switch off your surge protector at the end of the day.
• Report malfunctioning motion sensors to Buildings and Grounds by submitting a work order.
• Pull down window shades to cool the room during the day.
• Pull down window shades when you leave the office at the end of the day.
• Do not open windows.
• Keep the doors to departments closed to prevent cool air from escaping into the corridors.
• Maintain temperature set point of 72 degrees or above in window units.
• Reduce personal electronic items in your office like refrigerators and desktop printers and use departmental refrigerators and networked printers.
• Use stairs instead of elevators and escalators when possible.
• Share this plan with your colleagues.
• Share ideas—we would like to hear from you. Please send your ideas to Mindy Engle-Friedman ([email protected]) or Katharine Cobb ([email protected])
If we all work together to reduce our energy usage we can limit our carbon emissions and achieve significant cost savings.
Best wishes, Mindy Engle-Friedman, Chair, Baruch College Task Force on Sustainability
Katharine T. Cobb, VP Administration and Finance
Chair, Campus Facilities Team
|
Campus Announcement
In most class-rooms I’m not sure that people have access to the air conditioning controls?