Southwestern has been recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for using more green power than any other school in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference.

Southwestern topped the SCAC in the EPA’s College & University Green Power Challenge for the fourth year in a row.

Since April 2006, EPA’s Green Power Partnership has tracked and recognized the collegiate athletic conferences with the highest combined green power use in the nation. The Individual Conference Champion Award recognizes the school that has the largest individual use of green power within a qualifying conference.

Green power is electricity that is generated from environmentally preferable renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, eligible biogas, biomass, and low-impact hydro.

Southwestern beat its conference rivals by using nearly 17 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power, representing 100 percent of the school’s annual electricity usage. Southwestern has been purchasing electricity generated from wind power from the City of Georgetown since 2010.

According to the U.S. EPA, Southwestern’s green power use of nearly 17 million kWh is equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the electricity use of nearly 2,000 average American homes annually, or the CO2 emissions of more than 2,000 passenger vehicles per year.

Thirty-three collegiate conferences and 79 schools competed in the 2013-2014 challenge, collectively using nearly 2.3 billion kWh of green power.