Cambridge students race for the Rainforest

The short listed teams from the Universities of Cambridge, Liverpool, Bristol, Exeter, St Andrews and two teams from East Anglia, had to produce a film describing their plans for a local green project in and around their university and wider community. All finalists will now spend the next five months bringing their ideas to life, in the hope of winning one of eight places on a trip of a lifetime to the Amazon Rainforest. But only those judged to have made the most impact in their universities will make the trip, experiencing the effects of climate change first hand and gaining insight into the environment, resources and nature around them by living with an indigenous tribe for a week.

npower is also offering the eight winning students a summer internship where they can gain work experience across many different business areas and understand the dynamic energy industry.

Leading the ‘Love Food’ team, Alexander De Ville, from the University of Cambridge said "We were delighted to be short listed for the npower Future Leaders Challenge.

“We're now gearing up and can’t wait to get stuck into our project. As a team, we are shocked by the fact that 7.2 million tonnes of food is thrown away each year in the UK – and our aim is to set up a social enterprise helping to solve this problem.

“We will run a small van on our university campus selling meals made from food past its sell-by date but before its use-by date from our local Sainsbury’s - a practice already adopted by an existing Cambridge charity and any profits made will be reinvested into this charity.

“We aim to provide Cambridge students with convenient lunches at reasonable prices.”

Kerry Riley, npower’s resourcing specialist said,” The npower Future Leaders Challenge has been developed to find the next generation of forward thinking leaders: young people with drive and passion, committed to learning about climate change and discovering new solutions to tackle its effects. We’re offering opportunities to students to differentiate themselves and join a company that expects its graduates to constantly challenge and really make a difference. I wish all the finalists the very best of luck in this competition!”

The winning team will be announced in November and will travel to the Amazon Rainforest on their trip of a lifetime in June 2014.

 

About npower Future Leaders

As a company, npower understands the importance that our society’s future leaders will play in shaping and driving the energy debate and the need to balance cleaner more sustainable energy with keeping prices down.

The importance of living more sustainably, as the indigenous communities of the Amazon have learnt over centuries, is fundamental in helping to balance this ever changing equation.

The npower Future Leaders competition helps to inspire the next generation of future leaders to think differently and help tackle climate change by engaging people in their communities to get involved and make a difference. The programme also helps develop specific skills needed to help their career options in future years.

npower has also worked closely with a number of universities to help them reduce energy consumption and become more sustainable.  Recent successful partnerships have included projects at Oxford Brookes, Aston and Keele Universities. Work with these three universities has included mechanical and electrical installations, such as heating and lighting, in new student accommodation, library refurbishment involving ventilation, air conditioning and security systems, and, the installation of Solar PV arrays on a variety of university properties.

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For more information, please contact Sunita Patel at the npower press office on 0845 070 2807 or email [email protected]