 WHAT IS GREEN TEAM? Green team is a new pilot program created by FIRST. The goal of Green Teams is to raise awareness with businesses and communities on minimizing waste in their business’ energy. Audits are also an opportunity for teams to use them as fundraiser by asking for a percentage of the savings we bring to these businesses. This project has four main objectives as stated in the Green Team Pilot Manual by FIRST:
|
 |
|
The whole process from start to finish looks something like this:
|
|
As a team, we have compiled a list of our current sponsors and businesses and have contacted them to see if they were interested in doing an energy audit. Once we have a business interested, we then take a team of 4-6 students to that business’s location and walk through their facility noting areas that can change and potentially reduce their energy consumption. We do this with maps of the office that we make notes on. Because this is an enormous task, we have chosen to focus on just a few areas. |
 |
|
|
| COMPILING THE DATA: The hardest part of an audit proved to be consolidating the data and putting it into a presentable report. As we walk through these companies we take pictures of items and write down how many items are in each space. Using digital pictures are a faster way to record the product codes and numbers for later reference. By creating a simple map of the office and taking notes on the map, we keep track of all important information. Once we are done, we take all this raw data and make it into a report. We show how changes, like switching from a compact incandescent bulb to a florescent bulb can save a company quite a bit of money, especially when multiplying this many times over. PREPARING THE PRESENTATION: Once all the data is done being prepared. We will take a few students to the company and will present the information to them. The data has been put into a easy to read report showing the savings the customer can take advantage of by modifying behaviors and adding more efficient energy products. CONCLUSION: We love that our team has had the experience of participating in this pilot program where we can learn to think in a more energy efficient, progressive way. We know that this is critical for us, as engineers to begin to cultivate ideas in this ever growing field. What better way than this hands on experience doing audits. We are also proud of our team for putting into practice some very simple changes themselves where ever possible. If each person and business makes small changes, together we can make a big difference, and maybe save some money in the process. As a team, we have reduced our group meal waste from two and a half 30 gallon trashcans to just half a trash can; this is going from 75 Gallons down to 15 gallons. We did this by simply bringing our own plates and cups instead of using disposable ones at our weekly meals. We have also worked hard to shut down every computer at night. This may seem small, but when you add up more than 30 computers in the room there are large savings. |
|
