Dubai: For the past 10 years, students, teachers, and school officials in the emirate have saved Dh90 million and a total of 67,000 tonnes of carbon emissions — equivalent to the annual gas emissions of 14,105 cars — from being released into the atmosphere through the rational use of electricity and water.
The figures were released during the 10th Conservation Award on Wednesday organised by the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa), the Knowledge and Human Development Authority and Dubai Educational Zone. The award promotes a culture of conservation among students, faculty, and residents to use water and power efficiently.
In 10 years, participating schools and institutions saved 125 Gigawatt-hours of electricity, enough to power almost 8,000 average US homes for a year, according to the Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator of the US Environmental Protection Agency. They also saved 1.024 billion gallons of water, enough to fill more than 1,700 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
“These savings are very important because the idea is to raise the education level [of the community] with respect to conservation and to change their mindset and their behaviour,” Saeed Mohammad Al Tayer, Managing Director and CEO of Dewa, told Gulf News.
“This is what we want to do. For the last 10 years, a lot of things have been done, saving more than 60,000 tonnes in carbon emissions, which is also an excellent achievement.”
From just 50 participating schools 10 years ago, the number of schools has grown to 384. Al Tayer said the award has successfully taught 273,000 students how to consciously use resources for a better tomorrow.
The winners include 18 educational institutions covering nurseries, kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, universities, colleges, special needs centres, and adult education centres.
Five-year-old Mahara Marwan from Al Nada Nursery said she switches off unnecessary lights and taps whenever she can. “I do the same at home,” the Emirati said. Her group won the Best Conservation Team category for nursery.
Lina Al Samadi, vice-principal of Al Khaleej National School, one of the primary school winners, said her school spent up to Dh900,000 to replace most of their air-conditioning units with solar ACs. They have been reaping its benefits for the past 18 months now.
“We now have about 64 solar air-conditioning units. We have had a drop of between 20 and 50 per cent in our Dewa bills on a monthly basis for about a year-and-a-half now. So that made a lot of difference for us,” Lina said, adding they will replace all lighting systems with LED lighting by next academic year.
“When you educate the new generation, this is where change is going to happen.”
