In 2007, Carleton College renewed its pledge to sustainability by signing the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment. One of the first and most important results of which was that Carleton hired Martha Larson to be the Manager of Campus Energy and Sustainability.

Since Martha began at Carleton, she has helped the college take a number of steps towards reducing our carbon emissions. Specifically, Martha has championed the use of technologies to increase campus engagement.

One of these technologies was Lucid, a software that takes Carleton's compiled energy data to provide graphics which better visualize how energy is being used and generated on campus. This technology has proven invaluable to Martha and her team, but it isn't accessible to the rest of campus. Plus, the information that Lucid presents is targeted at energy experts and isn't the easiest to understand.

In order to engage a larger portion of the Carleton community, Martha envisioned an app that provided Carleton's energy data in a more digestible format. She brought this vision to our advisor, Jeff Ondich, and thus our comps project was born!