With Valentine’s Day around the corner, students at dozens of universities and colleges across the country are hosting love-themed green events this week in a bid to help students find romance and raise awareness of the simple, yet romantic things they can do to help save the planet. The events are part of Go Green Week (8 ñ 12 February), a national student initiative to raise awareness of climate change organised by People & Planet, the UK’s largest network of student campaigners.

Students at University of East Anglia will be the first to hostCarbon Speed Dating — a speed-dating night with a twist. Potential couples will be matched up for a series of speed-dates after working out their carbon footprints.

Andrew Taylor, a UEA student who organised Carbon Speed Dating, says: ‘We want to organise something fun which reaches out beyond the usual suspects in Go Green Week. To make a real impact, every single one of us needs to start showing the climate some love by reducing our personal carbon footprints. Students learn a lot of their lifestyle behaviour whilst at university. And let’s face it, it’s much more fun turning down the lights or the heating if you’ve got someone else to keep you warm!’

People & Planet student groups at Oxford, Reading and Edinburgh University are among dozens to organise an entire week of action, including practical carbon cutting projects like allotment creation, Love your Bike workshops, swap shops and candlelit Switch Offs to reduce energy-use.

The groups hope to engage over 10,000 students throughout the week with their love-themed activities and eco chat-up lines. It is hoped over 4,000 students will find love with their carbon ‘sole’mates at Carbon Speed Dating events and sign up to the 10:10 campaign to reduce their carbon footprints by 10% in 2010.

Go Green Week is a regular feature of People & Planet’s campaign to reduce the climate change impact of the education sector by creating sustainable behaviour change and resilient, localised schools, colleges and universities.

‘With the failure of politicians at Copenhagen last December, it’s never been more crucial for students to take action on climate change themselves,’ says Alys Mumford, Go Green Week coordinator for People & Planet. ‘The education sector has a massive carbon footprint and a long way to go in its transition to the low-carbon future we want to see. Go Green Week enables young people to transform their schools, colleges and unis and show just how simple and important it is to make a difference. From meat-free days to film screenings and low-carbon dates, the level of activity, creativity and awareness-raising this year is unprecedented and is pushing the education sector into going greener,’ she adds.

peopleandplanet​.org