About the Project

Across the academic world, universities are joining together to address the critical related environmental challenges of growing energy demand and climate change.  The University of Texas at Austin is at the forefront of trying to answer several important questions related to these issues.

Environmental Science Institute, with the support of the State Energy Conservation Office (SECO), has joined with the Campus Environmental Center and other faculty, staff and students, to initiate this partnership and implement a series of energy conservation and sustainable energy projects around UT.  The projects reflect ESI’s mission of addressing environmental and sustainability issues using an approach that includes education, outreach and research.  The projects will be successful if we all learn a little more about actions we can take to reduce our energy use and ecological footprint.

Recently students and staff at UT committed to being the first school outside of California to join the Green Campus Program.  The Green Campus Program serves to provide resources and integrate people from various campuses with the goal of encouraging more sustainable energy use. The Green Campus Program is an initiative of the Alliance to Save Energy (ASE), a non-profit with more that 30 years of experience in energy conservation.

Together these pilot projects represent a small step toward addressing the impacts of our growing energy consumption. We hope these projects will help to provide data and inspire others address this growing concern.