By Grace Romund (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: April 4, 2012
Although it’s never a good thing to get caught red-handed, last week it was great to get caught green-handed as UFV’s clandestine greenUFV team kept on the lookout for students participating in energy-saving activities last week.
Prism Engineering, an energy consulting firm in Burnaby, has been working in conjunction with UFV to promote energy conservation at UFV’s Abbotsford campus in the past year as a way to be environmentally friendly as an institution.
Sarah Smith of Prism Engineering was on the Abbotsford campus last Wednesday to raise students’ awareness of Turn It Off Week at UFV. She was at a booth fully equipped with 200 cupcakes topped with green icing; they were available to anyone who passed by the greenUFV booth who agreed to make a concerted effort to conserve energy on campus. Those who signed a “Green Pledge” and placed their pledge on the greenUFV pledge board received a cupcake.
Sasq’ets visited the Turn It Off Week booth donning as greenUFV t-shirt before touring campus encouraging students to do “green” things.
Smith said, “We’re trying to promote the “Turn It Off” message that you don’t need to keep lights on when they’re not using them. This is our second Turn It Off Week. We had one last term and this time we are connecting it up with “Earth Hour” at the end of this week. We also have the get caught green-handed campaign which is on throughout the week as well.
“The idea is to catch people doing “green” things; if they’ve left their office and they’ve turned off their monitor and their lights when they’ve gone for lunch or they’re biking to campus or those kind of things the UFV green team will be give out ballots and people will be entered to win prizes,” Smith explained.
GreenUFV is an initiative mostly supported by Facilities services. However, as a part of the Turn It Off Week during the fall semester, which was geared more towards staff and faculty, the greenUFV team recruited members from various different faculties and departments to be particularly conscientious of their energy consumption and that of their colleagues.
The Turn It Off Week was funded largely by BC Hydro.
“We have a representation from a number of different faculty and staff…” Smith noted. These green team members were the ones carrying around ballots and were on the lookout for “green” people. “It could [have been] anyone, anywhere” who could possibly have come upon you with ballots for the chance to win prizes.
Among the prizes available for those caught green-handed were a night at the movies, dinner for two at Finnegan’s Grill, and gift cards for grocery stores.
