Louisiana State University
ER-2: Student Sustainability Outreach Campaign

UNPLUG pits 10 residential communities against one another each year to see who can conserve the most electricity for three weeks in March. The program is hosted each year by LSU Residential Life, the LSU Students in Free Enterprise – or SIFE – chapter and LSU Campus Sustainability. UNPLUG seeks to promote an understanding throughout the LSU on-campus community of what energy conservation entails by empowering students to take action in their daily lives. This is done by working to reduce the students' own personal carbon footprint and, consequently, increase the university's contribution to conservation of resources and more efficient energy practices. This year's UNPLUG competition also continued to incorporate the "Do One Thing," or DOT, campaign, created by Saatchi & Saatchi. DOT is a nationwide movement in which participants make an online pledge to "Do One Thing" for environmental sustainability. A DOT pledge can be anything from unplugging charger devices when not in use, walking instead of driving or using reusable bags when shopping. The goal of DOT is to show how everyone's small DOT can together to make a much larger impact.

As part of the competition, in-hall professionals recorded utility meter readings at each building to monitor progress. The residence hall building and the apartment community with the greatest reduction in energy usage, as compared to a baseline average of two weeks prior to the competition, were declared the winners. In the 2012 UNPLUG competition, participating residence halls and apartments saved a total of 3,961 Kw/h in energy consumption, which translates into enough electricity to power between 30 to 40 homes for one month. East Campus Apartments won the apartment buildings competition with an average reduction of 20.65 percent for all the competing buildings. Meanwhile, in the residence hall competition, Beauregard Hall finished in first place with an overall reduction average of 12.8 percent. Highland and Louise Garig halls tied for second place with 11.2-percent reduction each, with Herget Hall in third place with an average reduction of 10.9 percent. 2012, 3,961 kWh (2 week baseline) 2011, 32,940 kWh, $2,471 (3 year average baseline) 2010, 173,668 kWh, $13,025 (2 year average baseline) 2009, 172,034 kWh, $12,903 (month of march 2008 as baseline)

http://www.lsu.edu/departments/gold/2012/04/unplug.shtml#!prettyPhoto http://unplug.lsu.edu/unplug.html