Staffordshire University Students' Union is proud to announce the launch of GreenPad – a sustainability project that will encourage the local community to be more responsible with their energy usage in the home.
GreenPad is in response to over 6,000 students living in private accommodation with little or no incentive to manage their energy more efficiently. Most students' sign up to all-inclusive tenancy agreements, meaning their energy bills are included in the price, and if they are sensible with their energy usage they do not get rewarded.
The Union will work with student-assessed properties, installing energy monitoring systems to keep tenants updated with regular bulletins on their household's energy usage, and feedback on how to improve performance.
NUS (National Union of Students) is providing the Students' Union with £100,000 funding required for the first two years of the project's delivery. In the long term the Union plans to establish a Green Accommodation Service to ensure that its positive impact keeps expanding over the coming years.
Staffordshire University Students' Union President Rochelle Owusu-Antwi said:
"We are really excited about receiving national support for this initiative.
"There has been an ongoing challenge for students to find quality accommodation that meets their needs. More recently our students have been making us aware that they want to find more ways to do their bit for the environment.
"This project brings these two issues together and will enable students to make more informed decisions and take positive action in their choice of accommodation and how they choose to live."
Staffordshire University Vice Chancellor Professor Michael Gunn welcomed the news saying: "The GreenPad project has developed through a genuine collaboration and engaging scoping that have fully involved staff, officers and students from across the University. The resulting project represents an exciting opportunity to develop a constructive partnership between the University, Students' Union, students and the local authority and community to deliver positive and sustainable change.
"This project fits closely with the University's agenda to put students at the heart of everything we do, improve the experience of students living in the local community and build a more sustainable future for Staffordshire."
The Union is part of a wider collection of students' unions that has secured part of a £5m fund NUS set up for environmental projects. The Students' Green Fund will engage 50,000 students nationally, and help embed sustainability into the core purpose of higher education across England.