Calling all students in Birmingham!

• Oct. 28 by Emma Williams (1)

At last, an incentive for students to make an effort to save energy – a lifetime supply of Ben and Jerry’s Ice cream!

That’s just one of the prizes being offered as part of national campaign the Student Switch Off, which kicked off proceedings again last month, for its third year running and hopefully its biggest year yet.

If you don’t know what it is yet, this nationwide campaign aims to get University students living in Halls to cut down on carbon emissions, by saving electricity, water, fuel and energy.

Halls across the country are put in competition with each other, to see who can achieve the largest reduction in carbon emissions.

Last year the winning halls were close to home. The University of Birmingham’s Oakley Hall shot to the top spot with reductions of 3.26 kWh per student per day, and certainly had the edge on Bristol University runners up who saved 2.97 kWh.

However, the University of Birmingham will have to step up their game this year in order to keep on top, as the campaign has come back bigger than ever with an additional 22 Universities taking part.

Other Universities in the West Midlands taking part in the energy saving competition are Aston University, Coventry University, Warwick University and our very own BCU.

The campaign is the brainchild of Dr Neil Jennings, who came up with the idea in October 2005, while studying for his PhD at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia.

He said: “I just wanted to try and encourage other students to do their bit to reduce carbon emissions and tackle climate change.

“I never thought it would grow as quickly as it has or be as well taken up by the students. I guess part of this is because of the increased coverage climate change has been getting in the media – students are generally well aware of the issue and on the whole keen to do their bit but a few ‘subtle incentives like Ben & Jerry’s never do any harm!”

Last year’s results showed an impressive total of 1,281 tonnes of CO2 saved and financial savings of £217,000 on electricity expenditure.

Can they beat it this year? Watch this space…