UEA

Schools Carbon Reduction Challenge

A group of Strategic Carbon Management MBA students from the Norwich Business School (NBS) organised the Schools Carbon Reduction Challengeâ using the UEA's Low Carbon Innovation Centre (LCIC) CRed pledge system. The main purpose of this Challenge was to organise a competition between schools in Norwich, which raises awareness of low carbon issues and promote carbon reduction strategies to local communities. A secondary objective was to raise money for and promote LCIC ethos within the community.

Children from a number of Norwich primary schools have been taking part in the competition to reduce their carbon emissions. The challenge launched with a picture competition, where children were asked to draw pictures of what they think of climate change. The Project manager, Marion Denantes, was impressed by the childrens enthusiasm for the subject we received some great pictures from the schools illustrating climate change issues ranging from melting icecaps to reducing the amount of meat we eat.

Each school received information packs prepared by the students which contained lesson plan on the carbon emissions from transport, in particular, the transport of food as well as the explanation of the pledges competition. Mick Sorenson of Valley Primary School was extremely pleased with the lesson material the children particularly enjoyed learning about the seasonal impact of fruit and vegetable transportation on CO2 emissions and finding out where food come from.  The pledge competition ran for one month. The children were asked to take the pledges home to see what CO2 savings they could make with their parents at home as well as the savings they would make at school. Pledges ranged from washing out paint brushes in cold water to asking Mum & Dad to walk to school instead of using the car. The competition finished on 25th June. As a result of it, pledges with a total of 50,000kg of CO2 saved were made, with the winning school making pledges to save 19,616kg of CO2. Chris Harrison, CEO of LCIC, said Education is one of our core areas of focus so it has been great to have local schools involved in this challenge and Im sure that both the pupils and their parents will be more aware of their CO2 emissions as a result.

A prize giving event, sponsored by Bayer CropScience and Aviva, was hosted by LCIC on June 29th. The winning school, Norman Primary school, was presented with a cheque for £500 and runners up, Valley Primary School, received £350.