Reducing Carbon Footprint of Water Consumption: A Case Study of Water Conservation at a University Campus

Abstract

This chapter reports on a study to promote environmentally relevant behavior on a university campus. Ten residence halls at Virginia Tech were included in the study, and the project employed five different strategies, each with a different number of prompting strategies to determine which approach was most effective at influencing reductions in water use. Consumption reductions were observed in most of the residence halls participating in the study, but no one strategy was more effective than another. Even though reductions were not achieved in all residence halls, overall water consumption was reduced by 11.6%. Reducing the consumption of water also resulted in the reduction of energy used to treat and transport the water from the University’s water source – the New River. Therefore, the energy savings achieved resulted in a reduction of the University’s carbon footprint.