Project term: November 2007 – March 2008

The aim of a project is to develop, implement and promote series of measures allowing to reduce and offset carbon dioxide emissions at two municipal educational institutions and neighboring households.

Results:

1. Energy audit of a kindergarten and a school (to be available online);
2. Carbon accounting toolbox (to be available online)
3. Recommendations on carbon dioxide emission reduction and offset for various areas of activity/workers at kindergartens and schools (office work, building maintainance, gardening)
4. 1000 leaflets on energy saving at households
5. Scenario of energy saving/carbon reduction classroom activities for two age categories (to be available online)
6. Scenario of energy saving game/holiday for kids/parents (to be available online)
7. Promotion package (stickers, logo, booklet on energy saving at educational instutution)
8. Three workshops for municipal educational institutions at Petrogradsky, Vyborgsky and Primorsky districts

Main Activities:

· To conduct energy audit at kindergarten (No.69 of Petrogradsky municipal district) and school (No.558 of Vyborgsky municipal district), to collect and analyse statistics of energy and heat consumtion over one past year and during the project
· To develop a carbon accounting toolbox for kindergartens and schools, to teach administration and maintenance workers how to use it
· To develop recommendations on carbon dioxide emission reduction
· To consult the educational institutions’ administration and workers on implementation of carbon reduction measures
· To design energy saving leaflets for households and promotional package
· Together with school teachers, to develop a classroom activity on energy saving and climate change for two different age categories of pupils
· Together with kindergarten workers to develop energy saving game/holiday for kids and their parents
· To distribute the leaflets among parents in the neighbourhood
· To organize workshops for other municipal educational institutions, to invite them to join carbon reduction programme, to distribute the promotional package, to consult them on carbon reduction measures (two workshops at the institutions concerned, one workshop at Primorsky district administration for education).

Background:
While Russia has been implementing a national programme on energy efficiency in education sector since 1999, the programme did not take into account the obligations to combat climate change which followed from Kyoto protocol signed by the country in 2004.

As a result, in the minds of decision makers, energy efficiency does not imply the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, and some existiing practices, like burning woods and leaves in autumn at school’s backyard, simply eliminate the carbon reduction effect achieved by energy-saving technologies. Moreover, the programme involved only schools and universities, but not kindergartens.

Meanwhile, we consider kindergartens as focal points to communicate low-carbon style of living on municipality level, as these are the educational institutions which are attended primarily by the kids from neighbouring households.

Two kindergartens we choose for the project are located in similar detached buildings and both receive heat from municipal heating system. One of them is equipped by a heat counter, another one is not. As kindergartens recently received certain degree of financial autonomy from governmental educational authorities, their administrations become more interested in energy saving measures, but they usually have vague understanding of climate related issues. The kindergarten administrations are keen to be involved and ready to invest into some modest energy-saving technologies, and the challenge for us is to make sure these energy-saving and carbon reduction measures come together.

Longer Term Impact:

With the tools to account greenhouse gas emissions from a single institution becoming available in the course of the project, and a set of low-cost carbon emission reduction measures being suggested, low-carbon lifestyle and business practices will be promoted thus leading to a faster transition to a sustainable, low carbon economy.

Sustainability:

The project participants will put all efforts to disseminate the project outputs as widely as possible. Municipal educational institutions of Petrogradsky and Vyborgsky districts will be invited to the workshops at Kindergarten No.69 and School No.558, respectively, while representatives of other districts’ educational authorities will join the workshop at Primorsky district administration for education.

Printed materials will be made available to the workshop participants.
All project outputs, including the energy audit examples, carbon accounting toolbox, generalised recommendations on carbon dioxide emission reduction and PDF version of the project leaflet and energy saving booklet will be kept available online on CTC website for further reference. Printed materials will be available at three district administrations for education and participating educational institutions.
Given clear economic benefits of carbon dioxide reduction measures suggested, and growing financial independence of municipal educational institutions in St Petersubrg and elsewhere, we expect that the project benefits will be disseminated and sustained.

Project is financed by The British Consulate-General, Saint-Petersburg.