Saving electricity across Sweden
The latest of our regular updates from across Europe: this time, our partners in Sweden tell us about energy saving across their institutions.
Since mid-October 2014, over 2,000 students in Stockholm and Gothenburg, have been able to participate in the very first year of Student Switch Off in Sweden.
The participants have been taking part in the competition by saving energy on a daily basis where the prize is a bag of organic groceries, and a positive impact on climate change.
With Facebook competitions the students have been inspired and motivated in saving energy, some in very creative ways, like the photo above shows. The team who took this photo have not only been covering pots with lids while cooking, and switching off lights, but taking energy saving to another level with communal dinners and tea parties.
This type of engagement and action is exactly what Student Switch Off is about; making people aware of their energy consumption and engaging them in ways which shows that saving energy can be fun and creative.
Student Switch Off Sweden was first adopted very much to the Swedish way of doing things. However we soon learnt that the majority of the students living in the halls where Student Switch Off is set were international students. We believe that this is great for the campaign as the purpose is to influence young people’s behaviour in energy consumption and with many international students, we will not only influence Swedes but also other nationalities, which could have an impact on energy consumption in other countries.
WIth a first successful competition in the autumn term, we are very excited to now have launched the second one. For this second competition we already have 50 per cent more participants than in the first and soon about to reach the goal of 10 per cent participation in total.
Whilst visiting halls to recruit participants we notice that many students now are aware of the campaign and some have already signed up. This is very exciting as the campaign is still very new on Swedish ground, but also shows that the students engage in energy saving and are motivated by this form of campaign.
For this second round of Student Switch Off Sweden we are increasing the number of prizes, with not only a first prize for the team that consumes the least amount of electricity, but also a second and third prize. This, together with a prize for best runner up, we hope will encourage even more students to save energy during the term.
