Parent Teacher Magazine Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools September 2014 | Page 13

CMS partners with Mecklenburg County, City of Charlotte to compete in
National Building Competition
CMS, Mecklenburg County and the City of Charlotte will compete
in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2014 ENERGY
STAR® National Building Competition: Team Challenge.
More than 5,500 buildings and more than 100 teams are battling
it out to see who can save the most energy in one year. In the spirit
of popular weight-loss competitions, the City, County and CMS will
compete against other participants across the country to work off
energy waste through improvements in energy efficiency, with help
from EPA’s ENERGY STAR program.
EPA will maintain a website devoted to the competition, featuring
a list of competitors and their results, a map of competitor locations,
and a live Twitter feed where competitors will post updates on their
progress.
The Charlotte, Mecklenburg County and CMS team will enter a
combined seven buildings in the team competition. CMS also has more
than 150 total facilities entered into the competition this year.
“Our district has a proud tradition of working to lower energy
use in our schools and other buildings,” said Superintendent Dr.
Heath E. Morrison. “We are excited and honored to be part of this
team approach to energy and resource conservation. It’s a great
way to remind everyone that conservation is important and a shared
responsibility.”
Competitors will measure and track their monthly energy
consumption using EPA’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager® tool, make
improvements to their energy performance, and share their progress.
In April 2015, EPA will award recognition to the individual and team
competitors that demonstrate the greatest percentage-based reduction

in energy use intensity, and to the competitors
with the greatest percentage-based reduction
in water use intensity. EPA will also recognize a
top building by building category using the same metric, as well as all
individual and team competitors who reduce energy or water use by 20
percent or more.
ENERGY STAR is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
voluntary program that helps businesses and individuals save money
and protect our climate through superior energy efficiency.
The ENERGY STAR program was established by EPA in 1992, under
the authority of the Clean Air Act Section 103(g). Section103(g) of the
Clean Air Act directs the Administrator to “conduct a basic engineering research and technology program to develop, evaluate, and demonstrate non–regulatory strategies and technologies for reducing air
pollution.” In 2005, Congress enacted the Energy Policy Act. Section
131 of the Act amends Section 324 (42 USC 6294) of the Energy Policy
and Conservation Act, and “established at the Department of Energy
and the Environmental Protection Agency a voluntary program to
identify and promote energy–efficient products and buildings in order
to reduce energy consumption, improve energy security, and reduce
pollution through voluntary labeling of or other forms of communication about products and buildings that meet the highest energy
efficiency standards.”

Parent Teacher Magazine • Sept/Oct 2014 • 11