The Associated Students of the University of Wyoming (ASUW) voted on a new senate resolution (SR #2868) entitled “ASUW’s Support for the Campus Heartbeat Initiative” during their weekly Tuesday meeting.
The resolution outlined how ASUW would encourage UW President Ed Seidel, the Board of Trustees, and the UW Operations Department to present a live energy use data outline on a web application entitled Campus Heartbeat, which a UW student created.
The web application will increase education, research, operations, accessibility, and suitability outreach across campus, which could lead to cost-saving energy measures.
“We just need to say how awesome this is,” Senator Ewalt said.
“This is the culmination of a year’s worth of amazing work by so many people, especially Director Macy, and how this bill, this decision, and doing this moving forward is going to have real tangible impacts on this campus.”
In the initiation of cost-saving measures, UW will be able to reallocate their near and far-reach suitability goals and practices in areas like academics, engagement, operations, planning and administration, innovation, and leadership.
It will allow ASUW to promote energy-efficient buildings on campus and real-time energy management. It will also enable the UW Operations Department’s budget to increase in the hopes of using funds to make people more aware of energy management across campus.
Director of Sustainability Luke Macy and Chief of Legislative Affairs Saber Smith wrote the bill and was sponsored by Senators Bouma, Castronovo, Engelby, Ewalt, McLean, Meiklejohn, and Stadler; ASUW President Brown, Director of Governmental & Community Affairs Heddins, Director of Student Outreach Murfitt; First-Year Senators Chaudhari, Keasling Knopp, Lake, Mahoney, Medina, and Worcester.
The bill also states that the student government urges UW Operation to build a reliable energy use data pipeline with the help of an ASUW executive.
The School of Commuting will provide daily energy use data on everyday statistics such as electricity, domestic water, and chilled water. The buildings will start being tracked on August 28, 2023, with the results coming out soon after. ASUW hopes to put a program like this in all buildings in the future.
This is all with the hope that carbon emissions at UW will decrease, leading to an increase in the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) stars.
The 111th administration will also help maintain this resolution’s integrity by considering funding for a special project to uninstall digital boards across campus to showcase energy use for students and staff to look at.
