Promoting wiser use of electricity and water in Seychelles |17 March 2016

Key stakeholders met in a workshop this week to validate the revised energy communication and education strategy.

The objective of this half-day workshop was to familiarise stakeholders with the objectives and approaches of the Seychelles Energy Education Strategy (Sees) and to obtain their feedback.

In his opening remarks the chief executive (CEO) of the Seychelles Energy Commission (Sec) Tony Imaduwa said Sees has achieved some significant results in terms of raising awareness about the need to reduce energy consumption, setting the stage for collaboration between stakeholders from government, civil society, the media and the private sector.

However, a lack of targeted funding hindered its full implementation at that time.

“This time round we have financing available, through the GEF Resource Efficiency project and the GEF Photovoltaic (PV) project, for many of the activities being proposed for implementation under the plan and this will go a long way towards ensuring that the activities of the new Energy Education Strategy are implemented. But we will still rely on the contributions from our key partners, such as Public Utilities Corporation (PUC), the ministries in particular Ministry for Environment, Energy and Climate Change (MEECC) and from the private sector,” he said.

The Sees is being developed through the GOS-UNDP-GEF Resource Efficiency Project and Sec on behalf of the MEECC.

The project is being implemented by the Sec together with other partners, namely the GOS- UNDP-GEF PV project, PUC, the Ministry of Education, environment education department and other government and non-governmental organisations involved in energy education and who have collaborated on the newly reviewed strategy.

The Sees replaces the country’s previous strategy – the Seychelles Energy Education and Communication Strategy, also known as Seecs.

This first strategy was put in place in 2012 to 2014 as part of the government’s plan to raise the level of awareness and educate the general public concerning energy efficiency and the potential for energy cost savings.

The newly improved strategy results from a detailed consultation of different market segments to find out the information gap that was hindering the uptake of the energy efficiency market at both the demand and supply sides of energy efficiency services.

 The Sees 2016-2018 aims to catalyse a renewed vigour in communicating and educating the public about energy efficiency, focusing on five main key messages aimed at targeting different segments of the population. It also takes into consideration the energy used for water treatment.

This new strategy stresses on the objective of promoting wise use of energy and water and the links between their efficiency through five key messages: use energy and water resources wisely at home, school and in the workplace to help the environment and save money; choose energy and water efficiency equipment and appliances, using energy efficiency labeling as a guideline; make your homes and buildings more energy and water efficient; adopt renewable energy technologies; and make use of financial initiatives to invest in energy efficiency, water efficiency and renewable energy.

It addresses the need for different target audiences including schools, the general public, businesses and hotels.

It encompasses a range of educational approaches from communication campaigns, to school programmes, general public awareness and training on specific issues.

During the workshop the stakeholders took the cool gang pledge to contribute towards successful implementation.

Present were representatives from PUC, MEECC, Sec, Programme Coordinator Unit (PCU), Seychelles Chambers of Commerce and Industry (SCCI), Seychelles Civil Aviation Authority (SCAA), Sids Youth AIMs Hub (SYAH) and Sustainability for Seychelles (S4S), among others.