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A game, sort of 

It’s important in our group sessions that everyone participates.  Games are a very common way to make activities more engaging and ensure this happens. For our second session, we’ve devised a sort of a game. There’s no winners and no losers, and no real sense of knowing how the group has done, but it has cards and turns, and we think it will do what we want. 

The game is intended to help groups think about what actions they can take in their plans to move their buildings towards net zero. The cards represent the different actions. They range from things that can be done for free to large items that take a lot of planning, like installing a ground source heat pump. They also are rated by the potential carbon savings – for now with stars, but in the printed sets, with card size. The ratings are only rough! In session 2, groups will use the game to start thinking about what’s right for their buildings by choosing the actions that they think will suit their building and their users, discarding ones that definitely won’t, and identifying where they need more information. 

The game covers a lot of territory. We knew when we started the program that we wouldn’t have the answers to everything, and we don’t! We have some very talented building services engineers volunteering with the groups who will know more than we do about some actions. Since they’ll be reading the cards before the training anyway we’ll be asking them whether they would comment and also suggest what to put in the document that explains the cards – for instance, links for further reading suited either for the group members or for the engineer.  We’re also asking a range of advisers about specific points in their areas of expertise. We’ll then print the cards, ready for use.