In April more than 250 staff and students took part in the Southampton Blackout on our Highfield Campus, the biggest switch-off and energy audit of its kind in the sector.
The event highlighted the significant financial and environmental impact that we can all have when we make the effort to switch-off everyday items like computers, monitors, lights, fans and phone chargers at the end of the day.
In one weekend we saved 7 tonnes of carbon and £1,600!
Our everyday actions will help us to meet our ambitious carbon reduction target – 20% by 2020 – so please maintain the momentum this term, starting with ensuring that your computer is switched off at the end of the day. We’ll be looking at our energy data to see how well we’re doing. And we’ll be putting in place nudges and prompts to remind you, too.
A few things to remember:
- It’s no longer necessary to leave your computer on if you’re planning to work from home.
- If your computer takes longer than four minutes to load up in the mornings, you can log it as a ServiceLine ticket and iSolutions will look into the problem for you.
- Even the smallest piece of equipment left on overnight will use electricity, and with 25,000+ of us at the University, things start to add up!
- If you think something needs a bigger technical fix in your office, or you have an idea for how we can meet our targets, we have £1m set aside each year to invest in carbon reduction initiatives, so send your ideas to [email protected]
We’ll be publishing more information about Southampton Blackout 2013, which will be bigger and better, over the next few weeks. Follow us on Twitter to find out first.