With school budgets on the mind of all superintendents and business managers, keeping the utility bill under control is a concern for schools in good times and bad. While energy performance bonds, sinking funds, and bond issues serve to improve the energy efficiency of our facilities, getting all staff to assist in the energy conservation effort is part of the energy story that districts simply cannot afford to neglect.
In 2008, Wayne-Westland Community Schools set out to do just that-educate the staff about conservation and enlist them in the conservation efforts. While hiring an outside consultant to do the job was an option, the district instead chose to tackle the task with in-house forces and created a program titled I-Save: Individuals Save and Vie for Efficiency.
At its heart, the program asked each building to select a point person to head up the energy conservation efforts at their building. The operations department provided each building with a presentation on the program and a startup kit that included a variety of items to help buildings in their journey. The kit included items such as CFL light bulbs, light switch stickers, posters, energy meters, and a handbook. The district’s energy manager did a monthly walk through at each building with the principals and/or point person to identify areas for possible habit changes as well as physical deficiencies. The walk through, titled Energy Use Reviews, were focused on identifying anything that could be done to reduce energy consumption and educating the point person in the process. Additionally, monthly fliers containing information on energy conservation were e-mailed out to the point persons to share with their buildings. To encourage student participation, poster, essay, and video contests were also held in all buildings.
While the program offered plenty of supplies, support, and information, achieving staff participation was viewed as key. Therefore, the program offered financial rewards to buildings for simply enlisting in the program and offered more rewards for achieving the energy savings goals. The results of the program were $430,000 (or 11.5%) in cost avoidance for electric and natural gas utility costs in F08/09 and $520,000 (or 16.3%) during F09/10. From those cost avoidance savings, over $100,000 annually was returned to the school buildings in the form of additional discretionary instructional supply budgets.
At the end of the day, Wayne-Westland Community Schools has created an energy conservation program that is truly something that all staff and students benefit from: educationally, financially, and environmentally.