Campus urged to ‘power down’

As the leaves outside turn red, a flurry of green is sprouting indoors across campus. Stickers advising faculty, staff and students to “Power Down” are appearing on light switches, computers and office machines.

In keeping with the adage “less is more,” the University is encouraging everyone to conserve energy whenever possible by turning off computers, lights, copiers, printers and other equipment that uses electricity.

Spearheaded by the Office of Finance and Administration and led by Craig Wittig, director of BGSU’s recycling program, Power Down aims to raise the campus community’s awareness that simple changes such as turning off a light can have a large, cumulative impact.

“There are thousands of us using lights and office machines,” Wittig said. “By making even these small changes, we can have a very positive effect on our energy use and cost savings.”

The mantra for recycling is “reduce, reuse, recycle,” which the University is attempting to apply to energy consumption. While campus is doing well with recycling, reducing consumption is also very important. “Recycling has more of a global or national impact, but reducing our consumption is something that really affects us locally,” Wittig said. “It all ties together.”

The initiative began about two years ago when BGSU Environmental Programs students conducted a study to estimate how much power the University uses. They found that 96,347,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity are used on campus per year—enough to supply more than 12,000 average American homes with power for a year, Wittig said.

Student employees in recycling are now placing the Power Down stickers in offices and academic departments. The stickers are scheduled to go up in residence halls over winter break.

“We can all try to think of other small ways we can save energy, such as setting our computers to go to sleep after a period of time,” Wittig said.