The UNMC LiveGreen initiative recently celebrated its first anniversary.
As part of the initiative, which supports UNMC’s goal to reduce energy consumption by 25 percent in five years, scores of UNMC employees:
- Pledged to take energy efficient action at work;
- Recycled used electronics last Earth Day;
- Turned off unneeded lights as part of the “Flip the Switch” campaign; and
- Learned about environmental issues in LiveGreen Scene sessions.
All of this helped UNMC:
- Save or cost avoid almost $400,000 in energy expenditures;
- Keep 1,357 metric tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. This is the equivalent of taking 266 cars of the road, not consuming 152,132 gallons of gasoline or the energy required to run 169 houses; and
- Collect 2.3 tons of electronic material to be recycled.
“It’s been an exciting first year for the UNMC LiveGreen initiative and the biggest reason for that is employee response,” said UNMC LiveGreen director Melanie Stewart. “We have big plans and goals for the upcoming year and it should be fun to see what we accomplish going forward.”