WKU Sustainability Coordinator Christian Ryan-Downing shared the university’s winter break power savings results on Wednesday.

This winter break, WKU reduced electricity use by 34.5 percent — an amount equivalent to the total pollutants put out by 130 cars over a year, Downing said in an e-mail to WKU faculty and staff. Natural gas use was also reduced by 16.39 percent over the two-week period.

The results were based off a comparison of the first two weeks of December to winter break power use, Ryan-Downing said in the e-mail.

The 34.5 percent savings in electricity means 403 tons of coal didn’t have to be generated by the power plant for WKU. It also translates to a drop of 682 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in WKU’s carbon footprint.

Ryan-Downing said this reduction was contributed to by efforts to unplug and turn off electronics, in addition to dialing down temperatures in unoccupied buildings over winter break.

Although the process can be difficult, Ryan-Downing said “the results are encouraging and the benefits are great.”