Volunteers Ready to Offer Energy Efficiency Advice

Members of a Nottinghamshire-based environmental group have recently completed training to enable them to offer advice on domestic energy efficiency to their neighbours.

 

Members of the community group Greening Kinoulton were offered the training by Midlands-based environmental charity Marches Energy Agency (MEA). Over three sessions the volunteers learnt how to visit a home and offer advice to householders on understanding energy bills, how to make a home more energy efficient and how to purchase renewables.

 

The group now intend to practise their new skills on friends before hopefully offering visits to others living in Kinoulton later in the year.

 

Caroline Harmon, Project Manager at MEA, delivered the training:

 

‘It’s fantastic to find so many people in one village who are willing to offer their time to help others to make their homes more environmentally friendly and save money on their bills. Similar projects in other parts of the country have seen average bills fall by almost a fifth in homes visited. Hopefully the same can be achieved in Kinoulton over time.’

 

The training was offered as part of a Low Carbon Communities project currently being delivered in Kinoulton by MEA in partnership with Greening Kinoulton and with funding from Rushcliffe Borough Council. The project also includes energy surveys of the village hall and a soon-to-be-opened village shop, education sessions in the local primary school and work with young people.

 

Greening Kinoulton was set up in 2010 to help people in the village to respond to climate change. Almost half of the all village’s households took part in an initial campaign to choose at least three simple actions they could take to lower their emissions and the estimated savings were more than 100,000 kilograms of CO₂, more than 70,000 litres of water and almost £20,000 saved on future energy bills. The village subsequently received a Mayor’s Special Award for their contribution to ‘Building Stronger Communities’ at the Rushcliffe Community 2010 Awards.