The name of the campaign “Enoori” is an acronym for “the beneficial space that shares energy” in Korean. As its name suggests, the purpose of the campaign is to save energy and promote the business district of Sinchon.
More specifically, it is a “Cool Share” campaign that saves energy at the summer electricity peak time which is from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. by encouraging more people to use public facilities or business area zones together instead of using energy to cool down personal spaces individually.
The campaign is perceived as a meaningful event for it provides a win-win situation for both the shops and customers. On one side, rather than saving energy by monitoring the shops that use air-conditioners with their doors open and charging fees, SMG asks stores to voluntarily engage in the campaign and attract even more customers by providing discounts.
On the other side, it also promotes consumers to actively participate in the energy-saving event as discounts are provided. To those who show confirmation pictures of practicing the three energy saving guidelines not to use air-conditioners with doors open, to cut off standby power, and to make use of highly efficient equipments, shops including cafes, book stores, hair salons, and restaurants offer discounts up to 10 percent.
“What is important is that we are trying to create an energy-saving culture,” said Lee Soo-jin, an official from the Energy Citizen Cooperation Team of SMG. “To sustain people’s efforts to save energy, we thought that we should help the campaign develop into a form of culture. That is, people should naturally cut down usages of electricity as a habit to save energy in their daily lives.”
SMG decided to hold the campaign in Sinchon because the university town is likely to accept the event more positively and favorably.
“We believe that when the university students who are the main consumers in the area keep on making efforts to save energy, stores will have to follow and also participate in cutting down inefficient energy usages,” Lee said. “This way, the energy-saving culture sustains even after our formal campaign is over.”
To further expand the campaign, SMG is supporting shops in Sinchon through various methods. Free energy diagnosis is provided to help stores precisely acknowledge the problems they have and therefore, solve energy problems. Also, awning screens to prevent outdoor units of air-conditioners from escaping are given to demonstrate that energy can be saved through technology in our daily lives. Moreover, incentives are presented to the shops that show the excellent improvements in curtailing energy uses.
“We are even planning to have more events to help transform Sinchon into ‘Energy Avenue,’” Lee said.
Ewha Voice
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