Today@Dal

The annual Ecolympics competition is hosted by Dalhousie University’s Green Residence Forum (GRF) to help reduce energy and water consumption in residences through competition and education. The energy challenge is aligned with the Atlantic University annual energy challenge. Before the competition begins, the energy and water consumption baselines are determined for all participating residences.

For 2014, the competition runs from January 31 to February 14.

During the two-week competition each residence is challenged to decrease their energy and water consumption and take other sustainable actions. Throughout the two weeks of the Ecolympics, sustainability will be promoted around the campus in order to educate and inform participants and campus members. At the Halifax campuses, winning residence will be determined by how much actual water and energy is reduced which is verified through metering. At the AC campus, as metering is being worked on, the winner is determined by how many commitments are signed up to by residence members on the dashboard through their facebook and how many sustainability events and people are involved. The winning residence for HFX and AC campuses gets to take home the residence trophy and other fun features such as a free movie night.

Goals of Dalhousie University’s Ecolympics:

-Have an engaging and competitive residence wide energy and water consumption competition.
-Heighten awareness of sustainability initiatives at Dalhousie.
-Have the competition influence the adoption of more sustainable lifestyle choices.
-Reduce Dalhousie’s carbon footprint.

For more information visit www.dal.ca/rethink or email us at rethink@dal.ca