Ivy League Gets Greenest

  • In this Green Power Challenge, only 54 schools were purchasing enough green power to qualify. (Photo courtesy of NREL)

Colleges and universities have been competing to see who can buy the most green energy. Rebecca Williams has this year’s results:

Transcript

Colleges and universities have been competing to see who can buy the most green energy. Rebecca Williams has this year’s results:

The Environmental Protection Agency puts on what it calls a “green power challenge” among colleges each year – who’s using more renewable power such as solar, wind, and geothermal.

This year, the Ivy League beat out the Big Ten to come in first.

The University of Pennsylvania was the top winner.

Blaine Collison directs EPA’s Green Power Partnership. He says colleges and universities can have a lot of influence with utility companies.

“If every school in America were to stand up tomorrow and say ‘we want to be 50% green powered by the end of next year’, the supply side of the market would say, ‘great, let’s talk about how to do that.’”

But in this competition, there’s a lot of room at the top. Only 54 schools were purchasing enough green power to qualify for the challenge.

For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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