Andover is now competing against Deerfield Academy in a fierce sustainability competition as a part of the Green Cup Challenge. Patricia Russell, Sustainability Coordinator, said, “The last two years, we have competed with Exeter in an interscholastic competition. This year, Exeter hosted their own Green Cup Challenge. So, we decided to compete with Deerfield for the first time.” “Phillips Academy has eight closely related peer schools in the New England area, but Deerfield and Andover were the only two schools who were operating on the same system online. So, that’s why we chose to compete with only Deerfield,” she continued. Last Green Cup Challenge, Deerfield saw an 8.48 percent reduction while Andover only decreased 1.69 percent. Russell said, “At that time Deerfield was using the Building Dashboard system and Andover was not.” Andover has established the Building Dashboard system, otherwise known as “Gunga Data,” for this year’s Green Cup Challenge. Russell said, “We have been talking with Deerfield for a while now about the Green Cup Challenge. Deerfield has actually been using the Building Dashboard system for a little over a year. So, when our website went live, I asked them if they would like to go head-to-head in a competition and they said yes.” In addition to the Green Cup Challenge with Deerfield, Andover is holding an intraschool sustainability competition. Christopher Batchelder ’11 worked with Russell to form the dorm competition. Using the newly established “Gunga Data,” dorms will compete to see which dorms can reduce the most energy. “Gunga Data” is an electronic platform in which students and faculty can monitor the energy consumption of all of the dorms on campus. “I think the way in which each dorm reduces their energy consumption is going to be different. For example, a lot of the smaller dorms are really rocking right now and the bigger dorms are dwindling , not because of student behavioral habits, but because the larger buildings are designed to produce more heat, water and electricity,” Russell continued. Batchelder said, “Yes, turning off the lights is a useful, although generic, proposal to saving energy, but equally as small things, from powering down your computer at night to turning off the power strip in your room, really adds up.” In addition to the dorm competition and the head-to-head competiton with Deerfield, Andover is competing in the Green Cup Challenge on the national level. “The National [Green Cup Challenge] began on January 21st and will continue over the next four weeks until February 18th. At that time, the school with the greatest percent reduction in energy consumption will win,” said Russell. There are 34 schools competing with Andover in the Northeast Boarding School category of the competition and 130 schools in the nationwide competition. “The National Green Cup Challenge is actually not that different from our competition with Deerfield, except that it includes tons and tons of schools and there is no public, online way to look at the results,” said Russell.
