Scottish Borders Council wins new Carbon Trust Scotland Public Sector award
Scottish Borders Council announced as the winner of Carbon TrustScotland's new Public Sector Staff Awareness Campaign Award
Scottish Borders Council was announced as the winner of Carbon Trust Scotland's new Public Sector Staff Awareness Campaign Award at the Scottish Energy & Environment Conference (SEEC) held at Murrayfield Stadium inEdinburgh on 5 February 2013.
The award aims to acknowledge and recognise public sector organisations that have established a staff awareness campaign over the last two years which has successfully demonstrated behaviour change, improved work practices and carbon and energy reductions.
Despite strong competition from five other entries, Scottish Borders Council won the award due to the unique and identifiable staff awareness campaign entitled 'TREADlightly', which was supported by good planning, thorough research and full personal and financial commitment of senior management.
The campaign involved using environmental champions, environmental monitoring and a programme of awareness raising. Branding for the campaign, incorporating the 'TREADlightly' strap and feet image, was designed to highlight the Council's objective of carbon footprint reduction whilst demonstrating it was already on the path to success.
Paul Wedgwood, general manager of Carbon TrustScotland, commented: 'Scottish Borders Council has done a fantastic job of creating a staff awareness campaign which also has its roots in a much wider energy saving initiative, the Carbon Management programme. The Council's own Carbon Management plan will give longevity to the staff awareness campaign. It means energy saving behaviours will become part of the Council's DNA through external events, the production of relevant training materials and the appointment of 87 energy champions to continue to disseminate the message to all Council staff.
'We were impressed the campaign had been carefully crafted to address key issues which had been identified for action through initial thorough research. The campaign had also been carefully monitored to ensure results were being achieved.'
Julie Rankine, waste strategy manager at Scottish Borders Council, said: 'We are delighted that all the hard work we have ploughed into creating and implementing our 'TREADlightly' campaign and the results achieved so far has been formally acknowledged. We know now from experience that a well instigated staff awareness campaign with support from employees at every level of the organisation can bring about solid results. For example, the TREADlightly launch event, coinciding with the Earth Hour 'Switch Off' recorded a 10% reduction in energy consumption at our Council headquarters. The campaign is part of our Carbon Management plan, a five year commitment from us which will hopefully see us reduce our energy use by 29% by 2020.'
Paul Wedgwood added: 'In the current economic climate, the benefits of staff awareness campaigns such as these cannot be underestimated; they have the potential to reduce costs significantly.'
The Universityof Edinburghwas highly commended for its 'Switch & Save Energy Reduction' staff awareness campaign.
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