Planet Friendly

The Green Campus interns, a group of students dedicated to energy efficiency, helped initiate a campus-wide energy assessment this summer. The study will identify how SDSU can save money by updating to more energy-efficient methods of lighting, heating and ventilation.

“The money that we save from this campus-wide energy retrofit will go right back into the utilities fund for the university,” said student Kenzie McDonald, project lead of the SDSU Green Campus interns.

The Green Campus intern program is a state-wide initiative of the Alliance to Save Energy, a nonprofit organization that promotes energy efficiency worldwide. Designed specifically to foster sustainability on college campuses, the program is supported by Sempra Energy, Southern California Edison and other companies.

The mission of the interns is to educate the campus community on energy efficiency inside and outside the classroom, encourage the next generation of energy-efficiency professionals and achieve energy savings for the university.

The summer’s energy assessment was a follow-up project after the interns proposed a campus-wide lighting upgrade that they determined could save the university $470,000 annually.

“The schedule of accomplishing a major energy retrofit on campus has been advanced and supported by the diligent and capable efforts of the Green Campus interns,” said Bob Schulz, SDSU associate vice president of operations. “We are grateful for their time and efforts.”

The work of the Green Campus interns is just one among many initiatives that earned SDSU recognition from the Princeton Review in its “Guide to 311 Green Colleges.”

Also highlighted are SDSU’s Center for Regional Sustainability, the new Aztec Center’s LEED platinum goals and student groups Green Love, E3 and Greeks Gone Green.