MSU has been pushing ahead in its own efficiency goals too, planning to reduce its energy consumption 20 percent by 2020, saving businesses more than $40 billion in the process.

“We are honored to be an integral part of this discussion,” MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon said in a 2011 statement. “We are ready to accept the challenge of improving the energy efficiency of our main campus buildings, about 20 million square feet of building space, targeting the energy reduction goal of this initiative.”

Michigan has some of the oldest, most inefficient power plants in the nation. And energy demands are increasing, so reducing the average consumption means those plants don’t have to pump out as much power.

“If these programs didn’t exist there may be a need to build a new electric plant,” Judy Palnau, a spokeswoman with the Michigan Public Service Commission, said of the state’s efficiency plans. “By delaying the need for a new generation, customers are also saving.”

The state’s public universities haven’t made a collective effort on the sustainability front, but they’re all committed to that mission, said Mike Boulus, executive director of the Presidents Council State Universities of Michigan.

“They are leaders in terms of energy technology,” Boulus said, although he said he wasn’t sure to what extent they’re committed to that.

DTE energy spokesman Alejandro Bodipo-Memba said the company, one of the largest energy providers in the state, has worked extensively to improve efficiency, investing more than $1 billion in wind farms and planning to reach the ten percent renewable energy goal by 2015.

“DTE has been very supportive of renewable energy as our progress has demonstrated,” he said. “It’s an important part of our overall energy mix.”