Saving energy – it's everybody's business
Cutting down our carbon emissions is everybody's business – and a new initiative is pitting building against building to see who can come out on top in the energy saving battle.
The Energy League will be launched on Thursday 1 August as part of the University's Energy Strategy to monitor energy usage on a building by building basis for the following year. Monitoring the energy usage has been done for several years, but the difference this time is that we'll be running a competition to see which building's electricity consumption shows the most significant decrease over a 12-month period.
So you can see what's happening in your building, we'll soon be launching an energy dashboard on the BeCause web pages where you can check what progress you and your colleagues are making. And at the end of the year, the winning building in each of three categories – large, medium and small – will receive funds to spend either on student scholarships or, in professional services departments, on team activities with an environmental twist.
Tim Allen, Environmental Project Officer, said he hoped everyone would really get behind the Energy League challenge: "We've got a lot to do to meet our targets and commitment from all of us will be a vital element in our success. Naturally there are some major University-wide initiatives, such as generating our own low carbon heat and power, which will make a major contribution, but behaviour change is expected to save around 13% of the necessary savings – or 2,700 tonnes of CO2.
"This is your chance to do your bit for the environment as well as winning some useful funds for your department to support student scholarships or to support local environmental impact initiatives, so we'll be in touch again to let you know when the energy dashboard is ready on the BeCause web pages. Using that, you’ll be able to see how much energy your building used last year and think about how you can bring that down over the next year."
