Looking back on our first year...
Over the last academic year, we’ve taken Student Switch Off across five European countries – helping students in dorms across the continent to save energy and cut carbon.
In our first year alone we’ve succeeded in making energy savings of 4.44 per cent, which is a saving of 600 tonnes of carbon. We’ve also engaged thousands of students from across the UK, Greece, Cyprus, Lithuania and Sweden, helping them to get into energy saving habits which last a lifetime.
We’ve been looking back on the year with our partners in the universities across the five countries, and we’re incredibly pleased with what we’ve achieved together.
As in the UK, Student Switch Off was received positively by students and has had a positive effect on their attitudes and behaviours.
Through the peer to peer support of student ambassadors and social media, simple actions like switching off lights and only boiling as much as water as you need become second nature, with the biggest savers rewarded with prizes.
But we’re not stopping here. We’re just getting started on year two.
Our partners across Europe are ready to expand the campaign, planning more creative ways of engaging students, along with bigger and better prizes. We’re going to make sure that energy savings are more quickly communicated to incentivise even more carbon cutting, as well as celebrate the international collaboration of the project to a greater degree.
By 2020, we’ll be reaching a million students through Student Switch Off. Massive thanks to everyone that’s worked so hard to expand it so successfully over the year behind us. Let’s make it even bigger this year.
