What we mean by utility teams
A utility team is a group of individuals (preferably a representative from each user group within the school) who meet regularly to discuss progress and organise energy and water saving activities. They should also be the main method of implementing these.
It may not be necessary to set up a new team as the role of an existing team may be easily adapted. Many schools use their school council, premises committee or ‘Eco-team’ initially and draw on a few additional individuals to help with the new emphasis.
What are the benefits?
Managing a school’s energy and water consumption can be a daunting - and time consuming job for a single individual. A dedicated utility team will make use of any individual skills or knowledge available and be able to more easily cover all the elements of the programme using a Whole School Approach.
How to get started - setting up a utility team
See if it is possible to adapt any existing school teams and identify any additional help you may need in order to reduce your energy and water consumption.
If compiling your utility team from scratch, it is a good idea to break down the activity into a number of smaller areas - use the programme tasks on this site as a starting point. Then identify individuals or groups that could help you with these and approach them to see if they are willing to get involved. Finally ask for volunteers to help fill in any gaps or to provide greater assistance.
How Sustainable Learning helps registered schools with utility teams
There are a number of tasks within the programme to help you identify the main activities for your utility team and provide guidance on how it should be operated. We also have templates and supporting information to help schools set up and run active teams.
Where to get further information
A summary of suggested roles for specific team members is provided as an insert to the free Carbon Trust guide ‘A Whole School Approach’ (CTV037).
