City of Bath gets ready to meet the Big Energy Challenge
City of Bath gets ready to meet the Big Energy Challenge
CSE's innovative project takes another step forward
28 September 2007
It's one thing to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. It's quite another to persuade the people working in them to change their energy-using habits. But that's exactly the point of ‘Our Big Energy Challenge', one of CSE's most ambitious projects to date.
Our Big Energy Challenge aims to reduce energy consumption across the major public sector and voluntary bodies in the Bath & North East Somerset area by 10% within three years. If successful, it will save the organisations millions — money that can be better spent on the things people want, like library books, street cleaning and healthcare.
The project is using high-tech equipment to identify places where energy management can be improved, along with the promotion of energy-saving to thousands of people working at all levels in the organisations involved.
Now well into its second year, the project has made great strides. Energy-leaking buildings are being monitored by state-of-the-art kit, and materials distributed to staff urging them to take up the energy-saving challenge.
Everybody working for the participating organisations — which include Bath & North East Somerset council, two universities, a large hospital, the police, a higher education college etc — (and who has access to a computer at work) is being asked to visit the campaign website. This contains brief information about the project and a slideshow telling them how they can save energy at work and at home. See www.bigenergychallenge.org.
Around 150 staff from the organisations involved have volunteered to become ‘energy champions'. These people — ranging from university professors to council admin staff — will promote the project internally and support their colleagues in efforts to save energy in the workplace.
Project manager, Martin Holley, said: "As well as installing equipment and making capital investments in particular buildings to improve energy efficiency, Our Big Energy Challenge is communicating with the very people who can really make a difference to an organisation's energy use: ordinary workers. This project has the potential to change the energy culture of the city of Bath."