Are you a fresher or student currently living in University/partner owned accommodation? If so, you may have noticed a particular sticker in your welcome box:
This sticker has been given to you to help you reduce your energy consumption, lowering your carbon footprint and doing your part to help the environment. But how can this sticker help? Well lets take a look at the facts:
Lighting is a significant consumer of energy, responsible for 18% of the UK’s electricity consumption and 15% of a typical household’s energy bill.
This equates to approximately 2.57 tonnes of CO2 emissions on average per household each year, which is roughly the same as half the weight of the bell in the Old Joe clocktower!
It’s clear that lights use up a large amount of energy! However, it is quite simple to reduce the amount they use, by performing the following actions:
Always turn the light off when leaving your room, no matter how long you are leaving for and making this into a habit. Make sure to do this in all rooms you are in, provided you are not disturbing anyone else!
Be conscious of how many lights you have in the room; do all of them need to be on? Ask yourself if you can switch some of them off.
Changing standard lightbulbs to energy-saving lightbulbs where possible (if you are in rented accommodation make sure to get permission first!).
Place this sticker by your light switch, as a reminder to turn the light off!
For further tips on how to reduce your personal energy consumption and minimise your carbon footprint, please check out the other energy-reducing tips on this website!
*If you are not in University accommodation and would like some of these stickers to place in your own home, then please contact the Birmingham Energy Society Facebook page or any of the committee members and we would be happy to pass on the extra stickers we have (stock is limited so be sure to get them soon!).
Sources:
1) Statista (2013): Electricity consumption of lighting fixtures in the United Kingdom (UK), by sector;
2) Energy Saving Trust (2020): Energy efficient lighting; https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/home-energy-efficiency/lighting
3) M. Buchs, S. Schnepf (2013): UK Households’ Carbon Footprint: A Comparison of the Association between Household Characteristics and Emissions from Home Energy, Transport and Other Goods and Services; http://ftp.iza.org/dp7204.pdf
4) "The Ivory Tower". Birmingham Mail. Birmingham. 10 November 1945. Retrieved 28 May 2016.