This weekend, UBC is encouraging its departments to turn off all non-essential electrical items in support of Earth Hour, a World Wildlife Fund global program designed to address climate change.
As part of the university’s Earth Hour participation, UBC is partnering with Vancouver energy management software company Pulse Energy to track electricity usage in campus buildings and show real-time greenhouse gas emission savings at: http://earthhour.pulseenergy.com
“For the second year, UBC is expanding Earth Hour to Earth Weekend,”
says Orion Henderson, Associate Director, UBC Sustainability Office.
“Our efforts last year garnered a two-per-cent reduction in consumption, saving enough energy to send a Skytrain from Vancouver to St. John’s, Nfld. This year, our target is a five-per-cent reduction.”
From Friday, UBC is asking nearly 60,000 students, staff and faculty on its Vancouver campus to unplug non-essential electrical loads, such as computers, monitors, printers, photocopiers, lighting and – where possible – additional heating and ventilation systems.
The Pulse Energy monitoring project is made possible by energy-monitoring meters installed in 80 campus buildings during the university’s five-year ECOTrek project, the largest campus energy-retrofit program in Canada. For the Earth Hour initiative, UBC will track electricity consumption in approximately 300 buildings north of 16th Ave.
“Since 2001, UBC has significantly reduced core campus energy and water consumption costs and saved over $2.6 million annually,” says Henderson.
In 2008, UBC earned the top grade among Canadian post-secondary institutions and third overall in the College Sustainability Report Card, an annual survey of 300 North American universities and colleges.
Earth Hour is an international lights-out event that is happening on Saturday, March 28 from 8:30 – 9:30 p.m. The goal of this global phenomenon, which began in Sydney, Australia, in 2007, is to get one billion individuals to turn off their lights for one hour to raise awareness about climate change and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
For more information on UBC’s climate action initiatives, visit www.climateaction.ubc.ca. For more information on Pulse Energy visit www.pulseenergy.com.
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