Energy management in educational premises and staff morale

Local education authorities in Britain currently find themselves being expected to act on two specific fronts by central government. They are being urged to curb their expenditure by explicitly [`]managing' the consumption of fuel in the buildings they own. They are also being asked to prepare the teachers they employ for a new task, teaching children to be pro-energy conservation. This paper contains an exploration of these two areas of proposed activity in the context of one specific English education authority. Connexions are sought between technical and non-technical measures taken by the Authority to cut its energy costs and its employees' perceptions of their primary duty, teaching. To this end, attention is focused on the intermediary role which buildings can play between employees and those for whom they work. It is concluded that local government officers, who are charged with responsibility for managing energy, cannot assume that it is a consensus issue--either as an abstract idea or as a set of practices. Hence the social acceptability of energy management cannot be taken for granted. Instead its approval and consent are problematic. They have to be earned. The criteria by which and the context in which employees judge the conservation and management of energy may make acceptance and co-operation difficult to achieve. But failure to do so may also influence their reactions to introducing energy studies into the curriculum.