Building a School Energy Policy – A Review Paper

Abstract

Human has always searched for higher living standards and greater power. Higher energy consumption, conversion, quality and efficiency have greatly served for the purpose with some consequences. Yet, the energy crisis in 1970s forced countries to take more imposing and complicated measures for energy saving and efficiency. For instance, the European Union set forward the 2010 Energy Performance of Buildings Directive legislation to lessen building energy consumption. The International Energy Agency (IEA) proposed its ‘25 Energy Efficiency Policy Recommendations’ in 2008 to save energy and to reduce annual CO2 emissions. Education and energy are two key concepts in people’s life. As schools play a significant role in education, they can play a similar role in energy consumption and education. Millions of students are enrolled in pre-primary, primary and secondary education around the world every year and countries spend significant amount of their GDP on education. It provides great opportunities to governments and schools to reduce energy consumption, save environment, and teach future generations the importance of building/following policies and standards through education as energy policy and education in schools have become an applying issue in today’s world and for the future. The aim of this article is to emphasize the importance of energy users’ behavior, school energy education and policies as building and implementing a school energy policy with the help of energy education and (inter)national standards can pay off not only within school areas but also nation-wide in the long run. Additionally, this article provides step-by-step energy policy guidance with a sample primary school energy policy for schools from the beginning and recommendations to raise school members’ energy awareness.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2016.v6n2p183