Evaluation of Groundwork’s Domestic Energy Efficiency project: Final report.

Abstract

Under Newcastle Science City’s Community Engagement programme, and under the Sustainability theme, Groundwork worked on a Collaborative Project with Northumbria University to deliver a targeted education programme of workshops on Domestic Energy Efficiency to residents of Newcastle. The project’s aim was to engage with families with young children living in the most socially and economically deprived wards in Newcastle, that is families who are potentially living in fuel poverty, to educate people on the importance of and benefits of becoming more energy efficient. Groundwork intended to deliver the education programme via a pair of workshops, each two hours in length, to twelve different groups living in specified postcode areas of Newcastle which meet the criteria for ERDF funding (Newcastle Disadvantaged areas ERDF Post Codes). Researchers from the Sustainable Cities Research Institute in the Faculty of Engineering and Environment at Northumbria University worked with Groundwork to gather baseline data on participants’ perceptions of fuel poverty and their approaches to energy use and energy saving before the workshops, and to evaluate how participants had benefited from the programme after attending the two workshops in terms of changing their approaches to energy use