What we do
"The small things in life can make a big difference"
Energy Saving Day (E-Day) will be happening between 6pm on Wednesday 27 February 2008 and 6pm on Thursday 28 February.
Over 24 hours, E-Day will be trying to show how even small energy saving measures can be made to add up, and potentially play a part in tackling climate change.
Everyone who wants to take part in E-Day is being asked to leave off household electrical items, which do not need to be on, and to leave these items off for as long as possible.
These might include lights in rooms that are not being used, televisions left on standby, mobile phone chargers left plugged in, unused printers, etc, etc.
A launch event will take place at St. Paul’s Cathedral at 5pm on Wednesday 27 February 2008.
This will include a candle-lit vigil for the Planet, games, a pedal-powered cinema, world premiers for a small number of fun and factual films, a welcoming address by the Bishop of London and a brief explanation of E-Day’s goals and activities by Matt.
E-Day’s nationwide “Leave It Off” experiment will be launched from St Paul’s Cathedral at 6pm on Wed 27 Feb and finish at 6pm on Thurs 28 Feb.
During this experiment everyone in the country will be invited to see if they can save energy in their home, school or office, by leaving off electrical items which are not in use, and then offered direct feedback on the results of their actions on national electricity demand via the E-Day website (www.e-day.org.uk).
The cumulative effects of millions of energy saving measures will be updated on the E-Day website on a minute-by-minute basis.
Syndicated versions of the data will be made available to media organisations and news websites for free.
The E-Day website will also offer information on some of the potential solutions to climate change that have been proposed especially for E-Day by a wide variety of major businesses, charities and scientists.
What YOU can do... "Leave It Off"
E-day would like to invite the British public to “Leave It Off” for 24 hours in Feb 2008.
The “Leave It Off” component of “Energy Saving Day” will start and finish at 6pm on two consecutive days.
We have almost finished building a Facebook application which will allow you to record which eletrical items (light bulbs, tvs, waffle irons, etc) you have left off for E-Day, and we hope that this will give you some other ideas.
Staging E-Day over 24 hours will help to minimise the risks associated with large swings in electricity demand, while allowing time for significant energy savings to be achieved.
The minute-by-minute data available on the E-Day website will allow individuals to judge whether the country succeeds in reducing its demand for electricity over the course of 24 hours, and also allow E-Day to highlight energy saving as a simple and painless way in which everyone can help to tackle climate change.
Given the number of non-essential household items that are left on, the widespread uptake of this call to action has the potential to result in a 1-3% drop in the UK’s electricity demand.
If repeated regularly, it has been estimated that leaving off of unnecessary electrical items would equate to permanently turning off a medium-sized (500MW) coal-fired power station or not needing to use approximately 500 (1MW) wind turbines.
Changes between the country’s predicted “Business-As-Usual” demand for electricity and actual “Energy Saving Day” demand will be used to establish whether the public’s efforts to “Leave It Off” have amounted to anything.
National Grid has agreed to predict demand the day before E-Day happens and to help the public to access this information via the E-Day website once the countdown has finished. It will also manage any changes in electricity demand and refine its forecasts, used to determine the effectiveness of E-Day, based on the weather during E-Day, as well as any other unexpected news or television events.
Leave It Off will be staged as a national web-based news event. In addition to the minute-by-minute data which will be covered in detail on the E-Day website, and syndicated to others for free. Summaries of E-Day’s total carbon, money and energy savings will be made available to the press.
The beautiful and informative graphics that have been designed for Energy Saving Day will be able to illustrate different aspects of the UK's predicted "business-as-usual" and actual "Energy Saving Day" electricity demand. These will be available on the homepage of the E-Day website, once the countdown has finished, and could be used also act as visually compelling backdrop for rolling news or live television programmes.
By showing the cumulative effects of millions of peoples’ energy saving efforts, over a specific time, we hope individuals will decide that it is worth their time and effort to leave off electrical items, and that they can help to make a difference by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping to tackle climate change.
Additional activities...
Additional actvities are being organised with top scientists, retailers, comedians and others, and will be announced nearer to E-Day.
Please visit Energy Saving Day's:
Facebook Group
http://oxford.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9526180142
Invitation to St. Paul's Cathedral (on Facebook)
http://oxford.facebook.com/event.php?eid=8542673036
You Tube channel
http://youtube.com/energysavingday
Guiding principles
The organisations and individuals taking part in Energy Saving Day (E-Day) have agreed that it is worth supporting a day of co-ordinated activities designed to focus public attention on the following:
(i) The scope for individuals to save energy, reduce carbon emissions and cut energy costs by adopting energy efficiency and energy conservation measures.
(ii) The scientific evidence associated with the causes and impacts of climate change.
(iii) The factual information and personal choices available to anyone wanting to adapt to the impacts of climate change or to mitigate their production of carbon emissions.
Individual partners have agreed to use the 24 hours of E-Day (27-28 Feb, 2008) as an opportunity to highlight specific positive and practical solution(s), of their choice, which relate to the causes, impacts and/or implications of climate change.
E-Day has been designed to raise awareness of the scope for co-operation and agreement amongst many different sectors of society and the extent of scientific concensus that exists in relation to climate change.
Every organisation taking part in E-Day has been asked to do something difficult, useful, informative and/or new (primarily in relation to heating, electricity, travel or food choices and solutions).
E-Day is open to discussing the concerns of any partner at any time, but retains full editorial control and independence.
E-day is financially independent of all of its partners and has obtained core funding from third party charities.
Dr Matt Prescott is solely responsible for the co-ordination, organisation and strategy of E-Day.
No financial contributions to E-Day’s running costs are required in order to become a partner for the day.
E-Day will be acting as a neutral and independent hub for the co-ordination of E-Day.
To the maximum extent possible, E-Day’s responsibilities include negotiating and finalising arrangements with all of the individual partners or the relevant industry bodies, staging a launch event at St Paul’s cathedral, generating media coverage for E-Day and its partners, building and running a dedicated website – featuring the solutions that have been offered by its partners.
All of the expenses and responsibilities associated with delivering a partner’s proposed solution or activity, as part of E-Day, are the sole responsibility of the partner.
Each solution or activity should be delivered to a previously agreed and legally required standard at the partner’s expense.
No unexpected or incidental costs incurred by the partners or their customers/members will be the responsibility of E-Day.
E-Day reserves the right, at its absolute discretion, to require any participant to desist from using E-Day’s branding elements or from otherwise holding itself as being connected with E-Day.
Partners are also entitled to withdraw 'at the discretion of either party', in the event that they find themselves unhappy with the progress of E-Day and want to pull out.