"We prepare students to engage in the world that is and to help bring about a world that ought to be."
Friends Works to Conserve Energy in Competition
Starting January 15 and for four weeks thereafter, through February 15, Friends Seminary is conserving energy as part of the Green Cup Energy Challenge
Starting January 15 and for four weeks thereafter, through February 15, Friends Seminary is conserving energy as part of the Green Cup Energy Challenge through our membership in the Green Schools Alliance. Participating schools track their electric usage weekly and log the results into this specialized dashboard.
Students Emma Higgins, Kira Felsenfeld, Brigitte Seeley-Messick and Ben Wong are working together with Sustainability Coordinator Antonia Daly and Gordon Hulse to calculate the School's usage each week.
Results for Week 1
In our first week of the Energy Challenge, we reduced energy by 25.9% in the 214 Building. Friends is currently ranked fifth of all east coast schools. We will continue working to conserve more energy throughout the competition.
|
|
Participant
|
Reduction
|
Baseline use
|
Competition use
|
Total savings
|
|
1st
|
214 Building
|
25.9%
|
5.27 kW
|
3.91 kW
|
289.3 kWh
|
|
2nd
|
212 Building
|
10.1%
|
5.91 kW
|
5.32 kW
|
126.1 kWh
|
|
3rd
|
Annex
|
2.0%
|
23.44 kW
|
22.98 kW
|
97.8 kWh
|
|
4th
|
Main Building
|
-21.5%
|
108.60 kW
|
131.91 kW
|
-4,942.3 kWh
|
Week 2
Friends has dropped to eighth place this week, but remains on the Mid-Atlantic leaderboard. The largest energy consumer is the Main Building, so we will redouble our efforts at half-lights or no lights, turn printers and appliances off at night and manually lower thermostats. Also, we have installed a few energy monitors in the Faculty Center, which will give hard data on appliance use next week.
Friends has dropped to eighth place this week, but remains on the Mid-Atlantic leaderboard. The largest energy consumer is the Main Building, so we will redouble our efforts at half-lights or no lights, turn printers and appliances off at night and manually lower thermostats. Also, we have installed a few energy monitors in the Faculty Center, which will give hard data on appliance use next week.
Week 3
Friends is now in tenth place in the Mid-Atlantic group. These percentages are cumulative over the weeks of the Challenge and are compared to the baseline for each building. We have reduced our increase as the weeks go by, from 21% down to 9%! Given the demands of the cold weather, we have shown great improvement as the community has begun to adopt energy-saving behaviors. For this last week, we will have another Dark Day. We are also very appreciative for the generous initiative of Mark Yosowitz, parent of Grade 2 student Graydon, and ThinkEco, who donated several programmable energy monitors to the School.
Please continue to monitor your energy usage to help Friends reduce kWh!
Friends Seminary actively promotes diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism in all its programs and operations, including admissions, financial aid, hiring, and all facets of the educational experience. To form a community which strives to reflect the world’s diversity, we do not discriminate on the basis of race or color, religion, nationality, ethnicity, economic background, physical ability, sex, gender identity or expression, or sexual orientation. Friends Seminary is an equal opportunity employer.
Friends Seminary — the oldest continuously operated, coeducational school in NYC — serves college-bound day students in Kindergarten-Grade 12.
