by Jbs042109 j3 — April 24, 2009—For the third year in a row, the Ivy League wins the crown as the overall champion conference in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2008-2009 College and University Green Power Challenge.
Led by the University of Pennsylvania, the Ivy League’s cumulative annual purchase of more than 225 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) has the equivalent environmental impact of avoiding the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of nearly 30,000 vehicles, notes EPA.
This year’s challenge included 44 competing institutions representing 22 different conferences nationwide. The challenge’s cumulative annual purchase of more than 1 billion kWh of green power reportedly has the equivalent environmental impact of avoiding the CO2 emissions of more than 136,000 vehicles. EPA also announced the kickoff of the 2009-2010 Green Power Challenge, which is scheduled to conclude in the spring of 2010.
EPA ranks collegiate athletic conferences by the total amount of green power bought by their member schools. To be eligible, each school in the conference has to qualify as an EPA Green Power partner and each conference has to collectively purchase at least 10 million kWh of green power.
The EPA recognized 22 colleges and universities for having the highest individual green power purchase among all respective schools in their conference. The first ten schools, along with their individual green power purchase and the total for their conference, are:
- University of Pennsylvania (192,727,000 kWh)—Ivy League (225,471,600 kWh total);
- New York University (132,000,000)—University Athletic Association (162,567,500);
- Pennsylvania State University (83,600,000)—Big Ten Conference (133,600,000);
- Oregon State University (66,680,400)—Pacific-10 Conference (81,646,400);
- University of California, Santa Cruz (57,000,000)—Association of Division III Independents (57,000,000);
- Colby College (15,975,000)—New England Small College Athletic Conference (50,445,000);
- University of Utah (38,333,000)—Mountain West Conference (42,070,466);
- Western Washington University (40,000,000)—Great Northwest Athletic Conference (40,000,000);
- The Evergreen State College (16,206,000)—Cascade Collegiate Conference (31,706,000); and
- University of Central Oklahoma (26,000,000)—Lone Star Conference (26,000,000).
