M‑CO supported the DCU Sustainability Team at Dublin City University (DCU) to engage their staff on energy efficiency as part of their new Sustainable Energy Community (SEC). The short-term goal of the SEC was to provide encouragement and support to the DCU staff community to undertake home energy upgrades and avail of SEAI home energy grants, with the longer-term goal of expanding the SEC and supports to residents living in the neighbourhoods surrounding DCU.
A survey was designed and delivered to capture the energy use across 2500 staff and postgraduate students and to assess the interest in applying for home energy grants from SEAI. By building this baseline of data we were able to identify that the SEC has the potential to influence over €224,400 in energy spend per annum. A series of information events and workshops further engaged staff on energy efficiency and the grants available for home upgrades. Both the survey and workshop design piloted with the staff community are being considered to engage the residential neighbourhoods surrounding DCU in the future, building additional capacity for the Sustainable Energy Community to encourage the uptake of home energy grants for energy efficiency improvements.