In the workshops, British adults often suggested that school is the best place to educate children on the environment. Yet, the survey with children shows that kids are undertaking more ‘green’ activities at home than at school. For example, 63% of children say they ‘turn off lights when they are not needed’ at home, as opposed to 43% who do this at school. Similarly, 48% say they ‘turn off computers or other electrical equipment when they are not needed’ at home, with this falling to 33% of children who do this at school. Whilst some of these activities may be the responsibilities of teachers rather than children, recycling paper, for example, is something that all individuals can support given the facilities. However, children say that recycling paper is not more prevalent at school compared to the home.

E.ON view

It’s good to see that children are taking green behaviour home with them. In fact, it’s interesting that they are more likely to ‘go green’ in their homes than at school, possibly because it’s harder for them to turn down the heating or turn off the lights at school than at home. Better still, by creating an energy literate generation, parents will no longer have to trail after their children switching off lights or turning off electrical equipment. Alongside this, it’s also important that companies such as E.ON offer greener options for generating power in the first place. So, through initiatives such as grants that allow schools to fit wind turbines or water wheels, and SOURCE, which supports the development of efficient and sustainable energy measures for community organisations,we can help schools become greener. We invested £53 million in home energy efficiency in 2006. These measures included loft and cavity wall insulation, installation of energy efficient boilers and smart metering, a technology in which we are investing a further £12 million over the next two years.

In the workshops, children were quick to see energy wastage as fundamentally 'silly' – it is perceived as 'stupid' to leave lights on at school and at home, yet it is seen as happening a lot.

These types of behaviour give rise to the view that on the whole, the nation’s children believe they are more energy efficient at home than at school. At home though, there is an acknowledgment from children that they can be part of the problem rather than part of the solution.