EPA Recognizes Green Power at Evergreen

The Evergreen State College is Noted as a Top Green Power Purchaser Among Colleges and Universities

Olympia, Wash, April 20, 2009 — The Evergreen State College announced today that it was recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as the 2008-2009 Individual Conference Champion for purchasing more green power than any other school in the Cascade Collegiate Conference.

Since April 2006, EPA’s Green Power Partnership has tracked and recognized the collegiate athletic conferences with the highest combined green power purchases in the nation. The Individual Conference Champion Award recognizes the school that has made the largest individual purchase of green power within a qualifying conference.

The Evergreen State College beat its conference rivals by purchasing more than 16 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power, representing 100 percent of the school’s annual electricity usage. The Evergreen State College is buying utility green power products from Puget Sound Energy and Tacoma Power, which helps to reduce the environmental impacts associated with the campus’s purchased electricity use.

EPA estimates that The Evergreen State College’s purchase of more than 16 million kilowatt-hours of green power is the equivalent amount of electricity needed to power more than 1,600 average American homes each year or has the equivalent impact of reducing the CO2 emissions of more than 2,100 passenger cars annually.

The Cascade Collegiate Conference’s collective green power purchase of more than 31 million kWh of green power is equivalent to the annual electricity use of more than 2,600 average American homes or the annual CO2 emissions of nearly 3,500 cars.

“Each year our college and university Green Power Partners raise the bar for clean, renewable energy use,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “By taking action on its campus, Evergreen State College is helping to move our nation into a clean energy future.”

Twenty-two collegiate conferences and 44 schools competed in the 2008-2009 challenge, collectively purchasing more than 1 billion kWh of green power. EPA will extend the College & University Green Power Challenge for a fourth year, to conclude in spring of 2010. EPA’s Green Power Challenge is open to all U.S. colleges, universities, and conferences. In order to qualify, a collegiate athletic conference must include at least one school that qualifies as a Green Power Partner, and the conference must collectively meet EPA’s minimum conference purchase requirement. For more information, visit: http://www.epa.gov/grnpower/initiatives/cu_challenge.htm.

Green power is generated from renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, biomass and low-impact hydro. Green power is considered cleaner than conventional sources of electricity and has lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, a greenhouse gas linked to global climate change. Purchases of green power help accelerate the development of new renewable energy capacity nationwide.

From edible forest gardens to a salmon-safe certified organic farm to campus housing options in which students consciously choose a different way to relate to their natural world, Evergreen provides students with the opportunity to embark on new ways of thinking. Purchasing Green Power is an important part of Evergreen’s commitment to sustainability.

About The Evergreen State College

The Evergreen State College is a nationally recognized public liberal arts college known for its distinctive interdisciplinary curriculum, high level of student/faculty engagement and emphasis on putting learning into action.

About the U.S. EPA’s Green Power Partnership

EPA’s Green Power Partnership encourages organizations to purchase green power as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with conventional electricity use. The Green Power Partnership currently has more than 1,000 Partners voluntarily purchasing billions of kilowatt hours of green power annually. Partners include a wide variety of leading organizations such as Fortune 500 companies, small and medium sized businesses, local, state, and federal governments, trade associations, as well as colleges and universities. For additional information please visit http://www.epa.gov/greenpower.

For more information about EPA’s College and University Green Power Challenge, visit the Challenge Web site at http://www.epa.gov/grnpower/initiatives/cu_challenge.htm.