What is the Million Monitor Pledge Drive and why is Mt. Holyoke participating?

The pledge drive is our response to the EPA's Million Monitor challenge to colleges and universities across the country. The EPA is urging everyone to voluntarily reduce their energy consumption by setting their computer monitors to a Power Save Mode.

Power Save Mode will turn a computer’s screen or monitor off after 15 minutes of idle time. Mt. Holyoke is going one step further and urging students to set their CPUs/hard drives to go on standby mode after 60 minutes.

Mt. Holyoke’s LITS (Library, Information, and Technology Services) has pledged to put 1500 school-owned monitors on Power Save Mode by 2007. To take it a step further, in Fall 2005, EAC ran a campaign to get 75% of students with computers (or 1300 students) to pledge to put their computers on Power Save Mode. 2800 idle computer monitors set to turn off can save the college up to 574,000 kWh, or enough to light 460 "average" homes for a year. At energy rates of 10.5 cents/kWh, MHC saved up to $49,000!

Since EAC achieved its 75% goal in the end collecting 1325 pledges, EAC as the sponsoring organization was awarded with Renewable Energy Credits (RECs), which buys enough energy to power all student computers until the end of the 2005-2006 academic year.

Mt. Holyoke competed against Amherst and Smith colleges for bragging rights as the college with the highest percentage of students to sign the MMD pledge. Smith came in first, followed by Mt. Holyoke and then Amherst. After Smith and Mt. Holyoke reached their goals, all three colleges purchased RECs through the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Purchasers Consortium.

Put your computer on Power Save Mode today and conserve energy, no matter what corner of the world you are in. Put one idle computer to sleep today, and bank on it tomorrow...