Attendance: 8 - Co-operative Regional Energy Manager, District Energy Champion and 6 Area Energy Champions

This was the second of twenty sessions that MEA are delivering on behalf of the EST to Co-operative Retail District and Area Energy Champions Nationwide. The sessions are run in a tag team format with the Regional Energy Manager addressing store issues and the MEA representative covering more general climate change and energy issues especially relating to the home.

The session starts with an overview of Co-operative Retail's energy challenges, aspirations and action so far. It then moves on to looks at issues in store and around the home, looking in detail at the solutions. Attendees all have prefilled a Home Energy Check form and the responses to this are used in an exercise before lunch to find out responses to the feedback they have received and discuss what issues this raises. In parallel, a Store Health Check form is also reviewed.

After lunch there is a quick case study quiz looking at a typical family home and some issues in store. Points are awarded for identifying the issues and the correct responses to them.

We then review how the energy champion network will cascade the training to all staff and do some more exercises dealing with how to identify people's motivations and how to talk to people about energy.

This was quite a different set of people, with again only one of the bunch having heard of the Energy Saving Trust before. All were highly motivated and switched on by the end of the day's sessions. Detailed feedback given on store and home issues and the links between the two very solidly hammered home.

We had a rather hilarious ‘airing dirty laundry session' where several energy gaffes were revealed that had been uncovered recently - a suspended ceiling that was removed to reveal another lighting rig, that still worked and some lights were on; a water heater left permanently on, two floors above the trading floor that was never used and lastly; a spare extractor fan that was turned off to save the store £5,000 per year. It was also useful to note that although many stores have been refitted recently and had upgrades, most of the energy savings that have been made in this district have been through the housekeeping actions of the energy champions network, not through the installation of clever kit.

The district area champion was particularly encouraging with his positive and professional attitude to the task in hand. The long-term aims of the project are to cascade this training to all staff of Co-operative retail, including distribution and completion of Home Energy Check forms. In one region alone, stores have a combined energy bill of nearly £10m and a target to reduce energy use by 25% by 2012 - this training will go a long way to ensuring that this can be realised and well as impacting on domestic energy use as well.