npower employees and Leicester students to take trip to Arctic Circle

Four Leicester University students and four npower employees will be taking a trip of a lifetime to the Arctic Circle after winning npower's Future Leaders competition. The intrepid group will visit the land of the Midnight Sun to dog sled over 200 km from a base camp into the wilds of Europe's most northern country.

The team of undergraduates from The University of Leicester found out that they had won the competition at a ceremony at npower's Rainton House attended by RWE npower Chief Operating Officer, Kevin McCullough.

The npower competition, which launched in June 2011, involved teams of students from universities across the UK, who each had to run a green sustainability project around their University. All teams had to produce films of their campaign from start to finish and submit to npower's judging panel, who ultimately judged the best team as winners of this prestigious prize.

The Leicester team came up with a project called 'Planet on Standby' which engaged young people to challenge their use of energy and the effects we have on the environment. The campaign focused on a regional education program for three levels of education which was rolled out to local schools, colleges and Leicester University. The team also created beer mats to reach a much wider audience, promoting ideas on how to save energy, the planet on standby website and of course, npower.

David Gray, Team Leader for Planet on Standby commented: "We can't believe we're off to the Arctic in March! It's an absolute trip of a lifetime and one which we think will be a real challenge. We worked extremely hard on our campaign which has reached over 200,000 people and is still growing. We look forward to its further self-sustained success regionally and nationally."

Kevin McCullough of npower commented: "Congratulations to Planet on Standby, the Leicester University team, on winning the prestigious Future Leaders Challenge that has offered a platform for students to help them develop specific skills for their future. I am positive that their project will continue to develop and that they will have inspired others to consider how they too can make a difference.

"We developed the npower Future Leaders Challenge to find undergraduates with passion and drive and I believe we have unearthed that passion and also found real climate change champions in this competition."

Heading off to the Arctic with the Planet on Standby team will be the four npower employees who all created individual sustainability projects, ranging from a bus service created to cut business miles, save money and reduce npower's carbon footprint, through to a project that harvests rainwater to reduce the environmental impact on the surrounding area at npower's Pembroke power station.

About RWE npower:
RWE npower is an integrated energy business, generating electricity and supplying gas, electricity and related services to customers across the UK. It operates and manages flexible, low-cost coal, oil and gas-fired power stations - generating over 11 GW of electricity. It serves around 6.5 million customer accounts and produces more than 10% of the electricity used in England and Wales. It is also on twitter (@npowerhq), Facebook and Youtube.

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