Water & Energy - Caledonian Court

The GCU believes that within Caledonian Court (GCU’s student residencies) reducing the average duration of showers is likely to result in reducing both water and energy consumption.

To explore this opportunity, in Sept. 2013 GCU’s Sustainability Team commissioned students on the [Level 3] “Marketing Assignment” on the BA (Hons) Marketing programme to develop an awareness campaign to encourage Caledonian Court  residents to reduce the duration of their showers.

The project’s objectives were to:

1. Determine the typical shower duration.
2. Identify factors that influence shower duration.
3. Identify barriers to taking shorter showers.
4. Identify opportunities for overcoming barriers to taking shorter showers.
5. Develop and test key messages to encourage shorter showers.
6. Develop campaign to encourage residents at Caledonian Court to take shorter showers.

The project team’s findings are detailed Shorter Showers - Presentation and Shorter Showers - Report, which together with the Shorter Showers - Promotional Brief were used to develop the Shorter Showers’ campaign.

The campaign was run in partnership with GCU Students Association and centred around a poster (see the image above), accompanied by eight postcards focusing on one of the water-facts in the poster, which residents were encouraged to collect and exchange for a prize (the poster and cards were designed by the University’s Print & Design Services). In addition to the poster and cards, which were distributed to every resident, a number of shower timers were also distributed to students.

Due to a number of constraints, the campaign was run first run in February 2017 and the University is evaluating scope for re-running it in the new academic year (Sept. 2017).