Students take part in Global Earth Hour
On Saturday 29th March 2014 between 8.30pm and 9.30pm Halls of Residence on and off campus in Nottingham, and the Malaysia campus, took part in WWF’s annual Earth Hour.
Earth Hour aims to bring people together through a symbolic hour-long event, usually involving turning off lights, to encourage individuals, businesses and governments around the world to take responsibility for their environmental impact.
Many of the Halls’ Environment and Social Justice (ESJ) reps not only asked residents to turn out their lights and unplug non-essential appliances, but also held events that encouraged students to come together on a Saturday evening and do something a little different with their night.
The Halls’ ESJ reps were encouraged and supported by the Students’ Union ESJ Officer Mike Abiodun Olatokun and ESJ JCR Hall Network Chair Jake Eddison-Cook, to use social media to their advantage to promote their events and reduce the environmental impact that is associated with promotional material.
ESJ Hall Reps held different events within their hall, depending on what they thought would encourage fellow students to “switch off” and the facilities that were available to them.
In Melton Hall, Helen Shaw arranged a blackout and indoor picnic with camping lights, board games and acoustic music played by residents in the common room.
For Cripps Hall, Earth Hour was the second blackout event that Hall ESJ rep Sarah-Jane Mason had organised in March. She was hopeful that these events would influence students’ behaviour and make a different to Cripps Hall’s score in the Go Greener Halls Competition league table, echoing WWF’s belief that Earth Hour should galvanise people into taking action beyond the hour.
Meanwhile, off campus, Louise Cohen organised a “chilled” event for Broadgate Park, which encouraged residents to switch their lights off and go down to the courtyard. To entice students from across the hall, Louise offered glow sticks and fairtrade food (chocolate, bananas and green tea) in the courtyard!
Earth Hour does not claim that the hour-long event is an energy or carbon reduction exercise, but as the University has the capability to record energy usage on campus, Halls’ electricity consumption was analysed for the hour (8:30pm to 9:30pm). Ten out of fifteen Halls saw a reduction in the electricity used compared to the previous Saturday.
The next Earth Hour will take place on Saturday 28th March 2015.