What are the benefits?
Comparing use to national benchmarks helps identify where the most waste is occurring and where you may be spending too much. This can be very useful in helping you to prioritise your activities and reduce costs.
A long term approach to energy and water management is more effective and yields higher savings than short campaigns. In order to do this, however, you will need to involve and motivate all school users to keep energy efficiency at the forefront of their minds.. This is easier to do if you can demonstrate that the actions already carried out are having a positive effect and that you have already made savings.
Knowing how much you have saved will also help you to set goals for savings. These can be linked to investment or additional school activities, helping to create longer term incentives for all school users. For instance, a school trip may cost several hundred pounds but if half the money is raised through energy and water savings, pupils and staff may be even more motivated to reduce consumption.
How to get started
Find out from last year’s meter readings (or bills if you do not yet have enough meter readings) how much energy and water you used. It is better to have this in units such as kWh and m3 as this will allow you to see any reductions. To motivate school users, you should also know how much you spent.
Why not use the monitoring tool on your homepage? Fill in the appropriate information and the tool will compare this to national benchmark figures and give you ideas on where to look for savings. You can then use the tool to enter monthly meter readings and get immediate feedback to help you identify and fix problems early on.
If you are performing particularly badly in one area (e.g. electricity consumption) you should focus your initial attention on how electricity is used in school. Look for reasons for the poor performance (perhaps by using building inspections) then set about making changes to reduce this.
Resources to help you make savings
• Find out what others are doing
. If you have a question or need further help, why not post a message on the discussion forum
• Download your Scheme Progress Booklet and start completing tasks. This document has some useful exercises to help you with these. Remember to collect evidence as you go to make it easier for you to apply for accreditation.
Where to get further information
The Carbon Trust’s free guide ‘A Whole School Approach’ (CTV037), provides benchmark information and ways to help you reduce your energy use.
Benchmark figures for energy and water can be found in the Sustainable Learning 'Scheme Progress Booklet'.
