The third annual Ohio University Unplugged ECOnomic Synergies Conference earlier this month taught OU students and Athens residents energy saving and sustainability tips.
Vestar, a company that identifies and implements energy-related technologies, calculated that OU has saved more than $1.7 million since the university hired the company in 2000.
OU conservation savings were 29 percent of Vestar's project spendings from March 2000 to May 2001, 20 percent from June 2001 to April 2002 and 25 percent from June 2002 to April 2003, according to Vestar reports.
The savings are partly a result of events such as last week's Energy Week, Vestar Project Manager Andy Sinozich said.
Ron Chapman, director of energy management at OU, said the events are effective because they raise awareness. Energy week is part of a yearlong effort to change the culture.
It's like tapping someone to tell them something
he said. You can do it once and they may forget. But if it's an ongoing thing they can't ignore it.
While it may not make a big difference when one person turns off lights or computers when they are not in use, it can make a huge difference when many people do, Sinozich and Chapman said. This difference, they say, can slow the rate at which tuition rises because utility costs are included in student fees.
The event did not only affect OU students. Local residents attended Energy Week events, 250 elementary school students were involved in the event's science experiments and more than 5,000 people nationwide tuned into the sustainability telecast Thursday, Sinozich said.
Some attendees, however, are questioning the effectiveness of the conference, which $2,500 of student money was used to sponsor.
Brian Kamerer, 20, an OU junior, walked past some of the festivities and said he had not heard anything about them prior to Energy Week.
I don't even know what they were trying to do he said.
Both Chapman and Sinozich said that one of the most important factors of conservation is that it is a continual process. When people save money by conserving, they can take that extra money and funnel it into other related projects, creating an ongoing cycle.
Vestar is planning a meeting to organize next year's conference. Vestar officials said they hope to add student presentations from other universities, an activity which fell through this year.
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Meghan Schuck
