May the smelliest dorm win!
Tuesday marked the beginning of the fourth annual Green Cup, a competition between residence halls to save energy and water. From Jan. 20 to March 3, Green Cup will measure Northwestern students’ efforts to be environmentally conscious, whether by taking shorter showers or doing fewer loads of laundry.
The brainchild of SEED, Green Cup is headed by Weinberg junior Laura Christian and Communication sophomore Elisa Redish, with the support of Engineers for a Sustainable World, Environmental Campus Outreach, Facilities Management, Student Affairs, Center for Student Involvement, University Housing and the Residence Hall Association.
For the second year in a row, the Green Cup will last six weeks, in contrast to its original inception as a two-week challenge.
“With a two-week-long competition, students did not really have to make lifestyle changes to save energy and water,” Redish wrote in an e-mail. “Instead, they could just not do their laundry for two weeks and voila, energy and water reductions. In a six-week-long competition, students have to make actual, conscious changes in how they go about their daily business in order to conserve energy and water.”
To measure residences’ water and energy conservation, Facilities Management will compare a baseline reading of all the dorms to a final reading at the end of Green Cup.
Dorms are divided into two categories: those with dining halls and those without. The dorm in each category that has the highest per capita water and energy consumption reductions will win environmentally-friendly giveaways and a party including live music and food, according to Redish.
As an additional incentive, the leading dorms in each category after three weeks will win 25 to 30 $5 Starbucks gift cards, which will be distributed by CAs.
This year, Christian and Redish wanted the competition to be about more than just conserving water and energy. The two co-chairs saw Green Cup as an opportunity for students to learn about environmentally friendly lifestyles.
In an effort to raise students’ awareness about green living, Green Cup will host speakers and firesides which students can attend to gain points for their dorm. These points will count for 25 percent of the overall score.
Christian and Redish also set up many other activities for the competition including events like an ARTica event, a DM “Green” Trivia Night and an event at Whole Foods Market.
“We set up these events so that Green Cup would be more interactive and to sustain interest in and motivation for participating in Green Cup,” Redish said.
But Weinberg junior Daniel Burgener said he doubted many students would change their habits because of Green Cup.
“I feel like there’s a lot of apathy, and a lot of students don’t take it seriously,” he said. “But it if helps some students live more environmentally friendly lives, it’s a good thing.”
Green Cup is the real deal for the Green House, according to its president, Jacqueline Beard.
“We had a brainstorming session with residents to talk about things we can do to reduce our water and energy usage,” the Weinberg sophomore said, mentioning competitions over who could take the shortest showers and studying in common rooms to save electricity.
According to Beard, the Green Cup’s effect will go beyond the six weeks of the contest.
“You can’t regulate industries as individuals, but in terms of being aware of the impact of each of our individual lives has on the earth, on its resources, on the ability of the earth to sustain us […] Individual choices are the things that make us really value the earth’s ability to do that,” Beard said. “And Green Cup helps people be aware of their impact.”
Chloe Benoist contributed to this report due to a conflict of interest between the author and Jacqueline Beard.