The total amount of energy spent in our everyday life is quite significant, up to 40% of the world's total energy usage. In this context, reducing energy use in buildings by introducing new technologies is very challenging; across Europe, the rates of construction of new buildings as well as the rates of renovation of existing buildings are both generally very low. Similarly, energy consumption in transportation is growing annually, also making it very challenging to save energy in this sector. Therefore, it is evident that, in order to achieve the ambitious energy and climate targets for 2020 and beyond, we need a change in citizens' behavior and consumption practices.
The GAIA project focuses on the educational community; faculty, staff, students and parents at various levels of education: primary/secondary/high schools and universities. Targeting energy efficiency in the context of the educational community is clearly very important due to a number of reasons:
1. Raising awareness among young people and changing their behavior and habits concerning energy usage is key to achieving sustained energy reductions. At EU level, people aged under 30 represent about a third of the total population. Thus, by targeting this group of citizens we affect a large part of the EU population. Additionally, young people are very sensitive to the protection of the environment so raising awareness among children is much easier than other groups of citizens.
2. Educating children and young people to adopt energy-efficient habits will also indirectly affect their immediate family environment. It is common for children to communicate and showcase their newly acquired knowledge to their parents. Several studies document the ability of students to influence choices made by their families related to environmental issues. Since about 27% of EU households include at least one child under the age of 18, our targeted efforts of reaching families of children and young people will scale further to reach a large portion of the EU population and multiply the benefits through increased residential energy conservation.
3. Buildings are the pivotal center of our lives. About 75% of buildings in Europe are residential and cause a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Affecting the behavioral characteristics of the citizens' interaction with and within the buildings where they live, learn and work within the EU will have a great impact on the overall reduction of the energy consumption.
4. Historically, energy expenses in schools have been treated as relatively fixed and inevitable. Evidence shows that a focus on energy use in schools yields an array of important rewards in concert with educational excellence and a healthful learning environment. Educational buildings constitute 17% of the non-residential building stock in the EU. Since energy costs are the second largest expenditure within school budgets, exceeded only by personnel costs, significant savings can be carved out for reallocation to needed services, if energy consumption is reduced.
GAIA's objectives are summarized as follows:
a) Engage the Educational Community: Develop feedback mechanisms to notify the students/staff/parents on energy consumption at school, in order to raise awareness regarding environmental effects of energy spending, while monitoring their progress towards reducing energy consumption and successful behavior change.
b) Development of a Culture for Energy-Efficient Living: Educate students towards efficient energy spending by providing the necessary tools to the faculty towards a pro-environment behavior and sustainable living.
c) Utilization of Energy-Consumption Data to Improve Efficiency of Buildings: develop tools to support staff into becoming energy managers of the educational buildings, by analyzing energy consumption and comparison with other buildings to benchmark performance.
d) Competitions across Communities: Promote student-driven game-based competitions to further engage groups to lower energy consumption.
e) Operation at several levels of education, with continuous assessment of behavioral change by establishing real-life validation across different parts of Europe, climate zones and socio-economic criteria.
