Andover placed 11 out of 19 New England Boarding schools in the Green Cup Challenge by reducing its total energy expenditures by 2.2 percent. “[The percent reduction] is not a huge number, but it still shows that everybody is working hard to reduce their energy,” said Debra Shepard, Sustainability Coordinator. The winning school for the New England Boarding schools region, Avon Old Farms in Connecticut, had a 16.8 percent reduction in energy expenditures. The competition ran from January 15 to February 12, but there was a delay in tallying the official results until March. Andover participated in one of the nine regional competitions of the Green Cup Challenge. The entire national competition, which involves more than 300 schools around the country, judges schools after taking a baseline reading of normal energy expenditures prior to the competition, and comparing those readings with readings of energy expenditures taken during the competition. Andover also hosted a simultaneous inter-dorm energy challenge. Eaton Cottage won the challenge with a 34.7 percent reduction. Shepard says that her goal in participating in the competition is to build a community that lives off of energy savings and sustainability-minded behaviors. “The real challenge in terms of the culture of the campus is how do we maintain that momentum from the Green Cup? Green Cup is only four weeks and people do a lot of crazy things, but [we need] to get that energy and enthusiasm and stretch it out over the whole year,” Shepard said. To promote energy sustainability throughout campus, the office seeks to tie in environmental consciousness in everyday student life. “At orientation [students are asked] what it means to be sustainable at Andover, [and this consciousness prevails] all the way through major events, to dorm life, through walking through academic buildings,” Through renovations and structural changes, the Sustainability Office hopes to reduce Andover’s energy consumption through installing “greener” technologies to increase efficiency. The new Rebecca Sykes Wellness Center is slated to have Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification and geothermal heating, an environmentally conscious process that extracts heat from the ground. The ice rink is also planned to make use of solar power in the coming years. “[The point is] having the campus demonstrate and be a model for sustainability, but [also] it’s kind of infusing [a respect for the environment]: getting it, buying into it and using that information in [student’s] lives going forward,” said Shepard.
