SAVES 2 was a 45 month-long project that was launched on 1st May 2017 and finished on 31st January 2021. The following were the successes:
• The Student Switch Off (SSO) energy saving campaign was successfully launched and completed in 14 universities housing 122,966 students in seven different countries (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Lithuania, Romania, and the UK) over three academic years (2017/18, 2018/19 and 2019/20). Various awareness raising activities took place including: on site dormitory visits (door-to-door knocking, stalls at strategic places across the university/dormitories), training for students to become project ambassadors, photo competitions and climate quizzes, and end of year celebratory events. The results have been encouraging, with 45,592 students actively signed up to the campaign (37% of the student population) and 606 signed up as project ambassadors, resulting in an overall saving of 6.78% of energy compared to the baseline. This equates to primary energy saving of 20.45 GWhs.
• The Student Switch Off+ (SSO+) campaign was successfully launched and completed as a pilot project, in Cyprus, Greece, Lithuania and the UK for the 2017/18 academic year and ran in all countries in 2018/19 and 2019/20. The campaign had a huge reach with 168,635 students reached via email with energy efficiency advice (Energy Performance Certificates and energy efficiency labelling), information on energy bills, and energy saving tips. This information was further disseminated through social media and face-to-face activities on campus. It has been estimated that the campaign resulted in 14.26 GWhs of primary energy saving.
• Monitoring and evaluation activities to capture the impact of the SSO and SSO+ campaigns took place, including pre/post intervention surveys, focus groups, and energy data calculations. Additionally, in-depth research was carried out to understand the experiences of students living in the private rented sector (more than 3,500 students participated), and landlords renting their properties to students (more than 400 landlords participated) about their perceived importance of the energy efficiency of their property, their motivations to improve the quality of their property, and their experience with students as tenants.
• The results and impact of the SAVES 2 project has already been disseminated at 13 sessions at 16 conferences, including high-profile ones such as the BEHAVE 2018, EU Sustainable Energy Week, and the European Association for International Education conference.
• SAVES 2 received two awards - the International Campus Sustainability Network 'Student Leadership' award in 2018 and the 'Digital Innovation Award' as part of Class of 2020 awards in 2019. SAVES 2 was also an award finalist for the 2019 EU Sustainable Energy Week awards in 2019, under the Youth category.
• Four academic papers were printed in journals based on SAVES 2 results & findings.
