Five weeks have now passed since the Southampton Blackout, our campus-wide energy audit led by 250 staff and student volunteers.
On Friday 27 April our volunteers spent the evening on our Highfield Campus switching off any lights, computers and equipment that had been left on unnecessarily before the weekend. In the process, they reduced our electricity usage over the weekend by 6%, saving nearly £2,000, seven tonnes of carbon and enough electricity to power five family homes for a year!
The purpose of this exercise was to highlight the huge positive impact that we can all have, just by taking a few simple actions every day.
We have looked at electricity usage for each of the four weekends following the Blackout and are pleased to report that consumption remains lower than the average of four comparable weekends beforehand.
However, our consumption is creeping up again, so we’d like to encourage you to be particularly vigilant before the upcoming Jubilee weekend. When you leave before the weekend, please make sure all non-essential equipment, including printers and phone chargers, is switched off.
We are currently in the process of finalising a Switch Off and Power Management policy for the University, and over the coming months we will be highlighting more of the actions that you can take to help reduce our energy usage, as well as promoting other simple actions that you can take to contribute to our sustainability agenda.
At the same time, we will continue to look at the balance of our energy usage, and address what bigger changes need to be put in place to reduce this even further.
If you have any questions about the Blackout or our sustainability goals, please email [email protected] or tweet us at @Sustainable_UoS.