News

Sustainability at the core of Green Apple award win

Published: 23-11-2018

• Energize Worcester initiative scoops International Green Apple Award
• Worcester Bosch joined University of Worcester as part of its award-winning project
• Scheme encouraged landlords and students to consider heating controls

We were delighted to get involved with The University of Worcester’s Energize Worcester campaign; a long-term research project that looked to understand students’ attitudes towards energy management. Its success saw it recently scoop an internationally recognised Green Apple Award, for its work in encouraging people to consider a more sustainable lifestyle.

The project involved working with the City Council and landlords in the first instance, and, with our collaboration, moved on to concentrate on boiler controls and the energy and heating decisions made by landlords and students in shared houses.

Initially engaging with 3,000 students living in shared properties in the Worcester and Birmingham areas, we installed a Smart controller and energy efficient boiler in five student homes to take the project into its second phase. Over two years, 1,495 online surveys assessed students’ knowledge and behaviour in managing their heating and their knowledge and attitude towards sustainability issues.

The aim was to get better information about the student private rental sector that could be used for future university and council campaigns, develop guidelines for students and landlords to ensure more effective energy use in student accommodation and to assess the impact of Smart controllers.

We had a great deal of information on how families interact with their heating controls but we wanted to get a greater insight into multi-occupancy properties such as those where students are living. This has enabled us to understand the energy saving abilities of our controls in this kind of environment.