This Energy and Water resource page is the first of a series focusing on different areas for carbon reductions in schools and colleges.
You can also download a pdf of the Energy and Water Action Sheet which includes all the information on this page, or order a campaign pack to be sent to you in the post.
Cutting your school’s carbon emissions from energy and water:
Energy and water is a great place to start work on reducing your school’s carbon emissions. 22% of the average school’s carbon emissions come from its electricity use alone, and that doesn’t even count the oil or gas burned for the central heating! And fortunately, there are lots of things you can do to drive down your use of these vital resources. You’ll be amazed at the simple things that a lot of schools and colleges aren’t doing. And remember, if you find people aren’t too willing to make these changes, just remind them that you’re not only saving energy and water, you’re saving money too.
This page is full of ideas for what you, your group, and your school can do to cut emissions from energy and water. Have a read, talk to staff and then set some campaign objectives. If you focus your group’s actions on achieving specific objectives, you’ll be much more effective at cutting the carbs. Back to top of page
Image provided by DesignShare.com
How do you compare?
On average, a secondary school spends £4.70 per square metre of surface area a year on energy. We don’t have a figure for colleges, but this is probably a good one to work from. They also spend £0.75/m2 on water.
You should be able to find out from your bursar or estates manager what the surface area of the school/college is and you will know from your carbon audit what the energy bills are, so you can start by comparing your school/college’s costs to this average and see how you’re doing. If your school/college is spending much more than this on its energy and water then you could be about to save them a whole lot of money!
Top Tips:
- 1) Upgrade the heating controls on the school’s boiler.
- 2) Fit energy efficient lighting.
- 3) Install “smart metering”.
- 4) Install water conservation devices.
- 5) Keep an eye on Information and Computer Technology (ICT) energy use.
- 6) Insulate hot water pipes.
- 7) Draught strip windows and doors.
- 8) Check for and repair water leaks.
- 9) Install small scale renewable energy systems.
- 10) Keep an eye on your bills.
Top ten tips to cut emissions
There are lots of things schools can do to cut emissions from energy and water. The government has produced a leaflet of the ‘top ten tips’ for schools to reduce energy and water usage. We’ve produced a summary of them below to get you started.
Find out if any of these things are already being done at your school/college before picking what to campaign for:
1) Upgrade the heating controls on the school’s boiler.
Reducing the temperature in a building by 1oC will reduce the heating bill by 5-10%! Have the heating on for an hour less each day and you can save the same again.
Modern heating controls let you have different settings for each day, so you won’t have the heating blasting away at the weekend when there’s no-one around. Check out the Carbon Trust.
2) Fit energy efficient lighting.
Lighting accounts for half the electricity use in a typical school. 26mm diameter fluorescent tubes use 8-10% less energy than 38mm tubes. Energy efficient lightbulbs use 80% less than standard ones.
3) Install “smart metering”.
Smart metering lets you know how much energy is used and when it is used. This means you can get a better picture of energy use and how to reduce it.
This is a great way to see how much energy unused equipment is taking up. Back to top of tips
4) Install water conservation devices.
A school equipped with water saving devices can use less than half the amount of water used in other schools.
Cistern dams, urinal controllers, self-closing taps, they’ll all seriously cut your water use.
5) Keep an eye on Information and Computer Technology (ICT) energy use.
ICT uses a huge amount of energy so it’s important to minimise that use wherever possible.
Use energy efficient equipment and make the most of all power management features. And don’t leave things on standby…turn them OFF!
6) Insulate hot water pipes
Lagging pipes saves energy AND stops pipes freezing in the winter!
You can even buy environmentally friendly insulation
7) Draught strip windows and doors.
Draught strips are one of the most effective ways of saving energy and improving comfort…and it’s cheap as chips!
8) Check for and repair water leaks.
Underground leaks in pipes waste a huge amount of water and money.
Take a water meter reading last thing at night and first thing in the morning. If it’s gone up, either you’ve got a thirsty ghost or there’s a leak! Your water company should find the leak for free.
9) Install small scale renewable energy systems.
Systems such as wind turbines, solar panels and solar heat and power provide pollution-free energy, and can get people interested in what you’re doing.
Your school or college can get grants for renewable energy systems through the Low Carbon Buildings scheme.
10) Keep an eye on your bills.
Once you’ve done all this great energy-saving work, keep an eye on the school/college energy bills to make sure nothing is slipping.
In practice you may not be able to do this yourselves, but ask the bursar to give regular reports on energy and water bills to your group.
Back to top of tips Back to top of page
Won’t these ideas cost the school lots of money?
A lot of these are going to cost money in the short term, but they will bring long term savings. Remember, every state secondary school and college receives an annual ‘capital grant’ for capital improvements, ie exactly the sorts of things listed here.
Your carbon audit should help you to decide which of these measures will save you the most CO₂ emissions. It’s probably best to choose one or two of these and do a good bit of research into how much it will cost and how much energy or water it will save (and therefore how much money it will save the school/college).
You can then organise a meeting with your bursar or estates manager and put a proposal to them to develop the project. If you need any help with any stage of this, just get in touch with your group supporter in the People & Planet office, they’ll be only too happy to help. Good luck!
Contact: action@peopleandplanet.org for help with planning your campaign.
Action
Spread the word, cut the waste
On average, more than 20% of energy in schools is wasted. To cut this waste, you need to get everyone in the school/college to play their part by turning off taps, lights and electrical appliances such as computer monitors when they’re done with them. A good way of kicking things off would be to run an assembly or a stall to get people thinking about energy wastage.
You could begin in your group by walking round the school and spotting all the things that have been left on when not being used and taking pictures of them. You could then hold an assembly or run a stall and present the pictures as if they were pictures from a crime scene.
Remember it’s not only the pupils we want to get to here, it’s the teachers as well. Is the light in the staff room switched off when there’s no-one in there? Do they make sure that staff room computer monitors are switched off when not in use and that computers aren’t left on standby over night? If not then that’s climate crime as well! Get a teacher member of the carbon reduction group to take pictures of these crime scenes for you.
Alternatively you can come up with a good catch phrase and design some posters, perhaps asking people “Are you doing your bit?”. Use them on your stall, put them up around school/college, put the words above every light switch and sink so people are constantly thinking about it.
Whatever you decide to do, remember the main thing is to make people realise how much energy is being needlessly wasted in the school/college and to get people to start turning everything off!
Further Resources:
The Sustainable Schools ‘Year of Action’ resources page
This has a table of materials that you can download. We would particularly recommend you look at:
Doorways: A sustainable school assembly series: This has one assembly for each of the areas we will be working on, including one for energy and water.