Energy conservation is on many people’s minds when it’s time to pay the electric bill at home. But at work, many forget that leaving the lights on or the windows open is not only costly but also environmentally harmful. That’s why the Office of Sustainability is looking for faculty and staff members to join the Energy Mentor program and promote energy conservation on campus.
The program started in 2013 with the goal of reducing energy use. Staff and faculty could voluntarily register for a training course to become a peer leader, where they would be educated on actionable energy conservation behaviors that they could take back to their individual departments.
Danielle Linthicum, the conservation programs coordinator who leads the initiative, said the program looks a little different now since it has been redesigned to have a wider impact across campus.
“The program went through a redesign in 2023,” Linthicum said. “We now provide two sessions, because we realized that not everybody wanted to be peer leaders, some just wanted to learn about energy conservation for their own personal knowledge. People can now take our Energy Stewards class first to learn about the basics of climate change and energy conservation. Then, if they are interested, they can take our Energy Advisors class to learn strategies for educating and incentivizing their colleagues to save energy.”
The Office of Sustainability has put together plans to make it easier for people to implement conservation strategies and learn about different conservation projects. Energy Mentors also will be able to participate in a new program called the Building Energy Conservation and Comfort Initiative (BECCI), implementing building-specific sustainability strategies informed by energy audits.
Linthicum said Erin McAnally-Trejo, NAU’s energy and water manager, and her team will conduct energy audits of various buildings to analyze what is using energy in that building and how energy use could be made more efficient.
“They will see how people in the building are interacting with the energy system, and then we will develop targeted strategies based on this information,” Linthicum said. “For example, we might go into a building and find that there are a lot of space heaters, a lot of windows left open, lights in common spaces left on. We can identify these problem areas and make recommendations to building occupants for how they can mitigate these energy impacts.”
Once the audit takes place, the results will be shared with the Energy Mentors in the building, who then will communicate the findings to the building residents and share some of the suggested best practices for energy conservation in that space.
“We realized that some of our overarching recommendations were not going to fit in every single building,” Linthicum said. “Every building is going to have its own energy challenges based on how old it is, where it is located, who is in the building and what it is being used for. We really want to target each building individually and investigate how we can improve the energy usage in that space.”
The audits will start in the Eastburn and Riles buildings. The Office of Sustainability is hopeful that with the help of the Energy Mentors, they can ramp up their conservation efforts and audit more buildings each year.
“We don’t have the time or manpower to talk to everyone about energy saving and that is why the Energy Mentors are a vital part of this effort,” Linthicum said. “They can help us spread a culture of sustainability on campus, which is one of the goals of our NAU Climate Action Plan.”
Faculty and staff interested in becoming Energy Mentors should fill out the registration form and attend two classes. The first one, Energy Stewards, is scheduled for Wednesday, March 19, and the second, Energy Advisors, will take place on Tuesday, April 15. Both sessions are scheduled from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Student and Academic Service building.
For more information on this program, email danielle.linthicum@nau.edu.
Mariana Laas | NAU Communications
(928) 523-5050 | mariana.laas@nau.edu