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Encouraging sustainable living in halls of residence

October 1, 2019
Student Switch Off is our international campaign encouraging student action on the climate crisis when living in university accommodation.
Student Switch Off ambassadors

This year 30 universities across Europe, housing over 100,000 students are taking part.  We're off to a great start attending over 20 arrival events and speaking to over 3,000 students about the climate crisis and sustainability in halls!

We are currently in the midst of running ambassador sessions, training over 200 students to date from around the country to become Student Switch Off volunteer ambassadors who then help spread the campaigns message. We've done lots of exciting changes this year to make this opportunity even more impactful, including a more in depth focus on the climate crisis and creating an online ambassadors group that brings all our ambassadors together to share ideas with their peers and to progress their knowledge through our online modules (e.g. introduction to climate emergency). We are excited to have recently released our first round of micro-grants (sponsored by Endsleigh Insurance), enabling ambassadors to apply for a grant to run engaging events for fellow students in their halls.

Over the last 12 years, we have reached over 1.1 million students living in halls, trained over 7,000 students as ambassadors, and saved over 25 megawatt hours of electricity (this equates to 15,000 tonnes of CO2 and £2 million in electricity bills). We're proud to announce that in November our online energy dashboard won the Best Digital Innovation award as part of the Best in Class awards! The dashboard, an add on to the Student Switch Off campaign, receives data from smart meters, enabling students to see their halls progress in near real-time.

We're excited what the campaign will achieve this year. It is more important than ever that everyone takes action. If you want us to bring the campaign to you, please get in touch with joanna.romanowicz@sos-uk.org.