• Research by students on the most appropriate messages, materials and dissemination routes     
  
• Design of a wide range of materials unique to the university to reflect the most popular themes
  
• Roll-out and promotion of the campaign across the campus
  
• Over 400 pre-campaign and post-campaign questionnaires for students and staff to measure the impact of the campaign

With support from the Fundación Asturiana de la Energía (FAEN) the Economics Faculty of the University of Oviedo ran a Student Power initiative involving teachers and students on the Campus del Cristo. This involves the development and promotion of energy awareness at the university. A questionnaire at the start of the campaign helped evaluate the level of energy knowledge that existed at the university, and this data was used to shape the promotional materials. It was also used as a baseline to assess the achievements of the campaign on its completion.

Background

Student Power is an innovative scheme designed to facilitate students on business/marketing and other courses to provide practical support to organisations running energy awareness campaigns, including energy saving campaigns within their own universities or colleges.

Students are supervised by a member of the academic staff, the activity contributes to their coursework and the host organisation receives dedicated support.

FAEN initially made contact with the Engineering, Psychology and Economics Faculties of the University of Oviedo to ask them to consider the development of the Student Power approach to raising energy awareness at the university campus. The Economics Faculty agreed to adopt the programme and to involve teachers and students on the Campus del Cristo. The campaign started in February 2009 and ran through to the end of the year.

The situation

With an annual energy cost of € 133 648 and an annual water bill of € 61 034, the faculty saw the opportunities presented by FAEN’s Student Power proposal to reduce energy and water usage and related costs. By involving the actual students at the university an awareness campaign would be much more likely to succeed.

Campaign materials

Examples of awareness material

Actions taken

At the beginning of the campaign students and teachers were asked to complete a survey to assess energy use habits, knowledge of energy saving practices and the wider issues of energy use and the environment. Over  350 students and over 30 staff completed the questionnaires. A similar survey was carried out at the end of the campaign of both groups to evaluate the success of the campaign.

A thorough review of the questionnaires allowed the economics students (with support from FAEN)  to develop campaign promotional materials and choose dissemination routes that best suited the preferences of the respondents.

The solution

The materials, which mainly focused on water use and lighting, and the methods of disemmination used by the students can be summarised as:

• short presentations to groups of students
• exhibition of posters with different messages
• handing out of fliers, stickers, bookmarks, rulers and folders with advice sheets
• a mobile Information Point staffed by students which toured strategic locations in the university buildings

Results

A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the success of the campaign was carried out in December 2009, and initial feedback from teachers and staff has been very positive. The students have succeeded in raising the profile of energy and water use through the clever and colourful graphical material they have developed. The enthusiasm of the  students in getting the message across through presentations and less formal discussions with their colleagues is a great motivator for changing energy wasteful habits.

One of the interesting results was that the campaign had to keep developing fresh material to maintain the interest of the students and this led to some of the more innovative approaches such as the bookmarks, rulers and doorknob hangers. The full portfolio of material developed can be viewed at Student Power.