“The idea is to help change old habits into new sustainable ones. We need to change from only 2/3 people in the school worrying about how to ‘Use Less’ to every stakeholder taking responsibility.”
Nigel Ward
I have had some great feedback on the above paragraph recently as it really hit the nail on the head for some people. Every individual whether it is in a school, or a business is responsible for collectively creating positive change that helps to safeguard the environment. We cannot make an impact unless we all join together.
Queen Annes School in Caversham has 750 stakeholders made up of teachers, pupils and support staff. Through our work with them using our Behaviour Change Programme, each and every one of those stakeholders has made a commitment to agree to take action in one area for the term. So instead of two or three actions being undertaken here or there, we now have 750 actions.
Taking lots of small steps is the future and we want to ensure that embedding these steps is as easy as possible.
Our Using Less Stuff Behaviour Change Programme is in the process of being revamped so that we can provide you with easy to access resources that enables you to become more sustainable and save money at the same time. However, the concept is still the same. It is a programme that aims to change mindsets so you can waste less and actively monitor your usage of stuff so that you can take action, set clear goals and measure success within your school or business as well as create a shared passion to make change within your organisation.
A lot of the schools and businesses we work with start from stage one – the stage where you ask ‘where are we now?’. On this journey, we like to begin by looking at the current meter systems in place and how they are measured. By understanding your energy usage, you can gauge a true reflection of your expected outgoings. A carbon footprint calculator is another way of looking at your energy, water, waste and transport in order to identify how you can cut costs and become more efficient.
When we have a full understanding of your business or school, we can then make recommendations on how you can improve.
Through our guidance and support, Queen Anne’s in Caversham has recently invested in solar. It has had 153 x 400w panels installed which provides a return on investment of 20% and a yearly system benefit of £13,365.36.
Renewable energy is becoming increasingly popular as a solution towards reducing carbon footprint. The Carbon Trust estimates that UK schools could reduce their energy costs by around £44 million per year; offsetting 625,000 tons of CO2 per annum by using onsite power generation such as solar and wind power.
One of the other sources of power which we are currently in the process of making more accessible is the installation of EV charging points. We are very much looking forward to sharing a case study with you soon on this.
As always, my main goal when sharing these articles is to create a conversation and so if anyone has any questions or would like to share their own feedback, I would love to hear from you.
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