The Swiss Federal Office of Energy and Swisscom commit to the Energy and Climate Pioneers Initiative

As of today, the SwissEnergy programme, the national action programme of the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE), is supporting the Climate Pioneers Initiative and by doing so is enhancing the role of energy in the school syllabus. More than 11,000 Swiss schoolchildren have so far been involved in the initiative launched by Swisscom in collaboration with partners myclimate and Solar Impulse. Schoolchildren have learned about the interplay between climate, global warming and human behaviour and have been able to channel the knowledge gained into their very own climate protection project.
Berne, 28 October 2014

From today, the Climate Pioneers Initiative launched in 2010 is receiving an additional strong, long-term partner in the shape of SwissEnergy, which will provide the project with input and financial assistance. For this reason, the project is being renamed the “Energy and Climate Pioneers Initiative”. Thanks to SwissEnergy, twice as many school classes can now benefit each year from free motivational lessons, and secondary school pupils are also being targeted. School classes can for the first time focus on building up their knowledge about energy. This also applies to classes that have already taken part in the initiative. The schoolchildren learn how to make responsible use of energy. After motivational lessons given by myclimate, the classes and their teachers realise their very own climate protection and energy efficiency projects, thereby becoming energy and climate pioneers.

Involvement of SwissEnergy within the framework of Switzerland’s Energy Strategy 2050

The support and acceleration of knowledge transfer on the subject of energy is an integral component of Switzerland’s Energy Strategy 2050. SwissEnergy is supporting and launching projects aimed at driving the integration of energy issues at all educational levels, be it by providing suitable course literature or by making relevant offers available to school classes. The Climate Pioneers Project in its new form dovetails with the goals of SwissEnergy. “SwissEnergy aims to illustrate alternative lifestyles that promise to provide us with an improved quality of life using less energy. This makes it all the more important for us to start to make people aware of these issues at an early stage so that today’s schoolchildren can become tomorrow’s energy experts,” explains Daniela Bomatter, CEO of SwissEnergy.

The climate protection foundation myclimate, which is developing the content of the initiative, is pleased with the new partnership: “This will provide the initiatives with an additional boost. SwissEnergy’s aims are a perfect fit, because you can’t uncouple climate protection from energy issues,” comments René Estermann, CEO of the myclimate foundation.

11,111 small climate pioneers already working towards a more sustainable future

The Climate Pioneers Initiative was launched in September 2010, first of all in German-speaking Switzerland, followed by French-speaking Switzerland and, finally, by Tessin last year. The Climate Pioneers Initiative has so far been targeted mainly at junior schools, which have rolled out 500 local climate protection projects. The climate pioneers sought climate-friendly leisure time activities, for example, offered bicycle shopping services, experimented with renewable energies or cooked on a solar hot plate.

A milestone was reached in 2014: the Obfelden (ZH) Primary School trained and inspired the 11,111th climate pioneer. “We believe that every little step counts. That is why we are making it possible for the young energy and climate pioneers to be active themselves. The great projects and huge response show that we are on the right track,” says Res Witschi, Head of Corporate Responsibility, at Swisscom.

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