It was round two of Notre Dame vs. Syracuse, and this time Notre Dame was the winner. After a heated month-long eco- competition, the size of Notre Dame’s team blew out Syracuse 1,932 to 1,446. As a finale to NBC Universal’s Green Week, NBC will donate $10,000 to Notre Dame’s sustainability efforts.
The competition was run through a website called Carbonrally.com, which encourages members to adopt simple challenges to save energy and reduce global warming. "It’s a great feeling to have exposed nearly 2,000 people to some of the day-to-day things that they can do to reduce carbon emissions,” said Rory Tipton MBA ‘09. Senior Lourdes Long commented, “The website competition provides a fun venue for the Notre Dame fan base to support the Fighting Irish and have a calculable environmental impact.” The 1,932 Notre Dame team members collectively reduced their carbon emissions by 47.63 tons.
Students rallied members to the Fighting Irish teams throughout November. After a two-hour signup in the LaFortune Student Center, Long reported, “We found that students were more than willing to help us beat Syracuse and were also interested to learn about the positive impact of their own small actions.” As can be seen in the above map of team member hometowns, Irish fans rallied from across the country. “The fact that our team consists of people from all over the country shows the national influence Notre Dame has, and can continue to use, to further sustainability education and awareness," said Tipton.
Now the question is: what to do with the prize? The Office of Sustainability welcomes input from all Notre Dame students, staff, and fans. Download the proposal form and tell us how you think we can best spend $10,000 to improve sustainability at Notre Dame. Submit all proposals to sustainability@nd.edu by February 2nd.