Centralight

Energy efficient When Mike Walton, M.S. '00, handed over buckets of water faucet aerators to two of his student employees, he never expected their efforts would result in a phone call from the city's water department. When the low-flow aerators were installed on the 4,500 on-campus faucets, they controlled the amount of water used and resulted in an annual utility savings of $58,000. "The water department called me to see if everything was alright because they were seeing a sharp drop in our water usage at the university," says Walton, CMU's director of energy optimization. "This is just one of the many things we're doing to reduce the university's utility costs." Any way you look at it – from reducing energy costs to going green and encouraging sustainability – CMU is taking significant strides to reduce its energy consumption and minimize its carbon footprint, which refers to the amount of carbon each person emits individually in any one-year period. Through various proposals, programs and initiatives, CMU is "creating a culture of sustainability," according to Tom Rohrer, director of CMU's Great Lakes Institute for Sustainable Systems. Among the many sustainable and energy cost-saving measures CMU has implemented are – clockwise from upper left – installing solar panels on the roof of the Education and Human Services Building and maintaining a wood-chip burning facility that emits steam rather than smoke into the air after the energy is produced inside the on-campus power plant. BY DAN DIGMANN University taking steps to minimize its carbon footprint "Everywhere on campus people are doing something to be sustainable," Rohrer says. "As far as recycling and going green being just a fad, we're beyond that now, and it's very much a way of life." Improving energy efficiencies The university has frozen its energy budget for each of the past three years, despite an increase in the number of students, facilities and resources on its Mount Pleasant campus. The energy budget will be frozen until the end of fiscal year 2014 for a total of five years. While this has posed its share of challenges for Walton and others in Facilities Management, they have found ways to increase energy efficiencies. "Our whole focus in facilities has shifted from fixing things to energy optimization," Walton says. "It's been the buy-in from all the people at the university that makes this work." continued on page 12 10 centralight summer '12 PHOTOS BY PEGGY BRISBANE

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