How Do Limbo Dancing, Landlords and Students’ Energy Habits Link to EfSD? A Student Green Fund Case Study

Li, Peng, Boom, Katy and Davis, Paul (2014) How Do Limbo Dancing, Landlords and Students’ Energy Habits Link to EfSD? A Student Green Fund Case Study. In: 2nd World Symposium on Sustainable Development at Universities, September 3-5 2014, Manchester UK. ISSN 978-3-319-10689-2

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Abstract

University students who live in privately rented houses account for nearly 42% of the student population in the UK, the majority live in relatively old housing stock which is energy inefficient requiring infrastructure improvements to make them more thermally efficient. The student landlord market is a stand-alone sector with some specific challenges including the high turnover of tenants and issues around who pays the fuel bill. This project described and critiqued in this paper is focused on a set of guiding interventions designed to help undergraduate students to save energy at home by changing their behaviour, alongside encouraging property owners to make infrastructure improvements. This paper presents a case study on University of Worcester Students’ Union’s (WSU) behaviour change project funded through the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)’s Student Green Fund (SGF). It aims to develop a cost effective model to assist university students to learn and develop energy saving behaviours. Competition on a bespoke student facing software platform, regular incentives and easy to understand reports are part of a multidimensional approach to this intended behaviour change. The overall goal of the programme design is to identify best or most effective practice and develop opportunities to engage with wider employability and academic skills in a number of disciplines. This project runs for two years from October 2013 in Worcester, UK with Birmingham Guild of Students a partner in year two to test the potential for replication of the same model elsewhere.

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