Can schools be models of sustainability?

Firstly, the plug: on 26 March, I’ll be speaking at an event with the same title as this blog, organised by SE-ED, an amazing charity who have worked tirelessly to keep sustainability on the radar of schools, local authorities and Government.  The event promises real, practical insights into why schools do and don’t retrofit their buildings, the pressures that schools face and the types of funding and support available. It’s only £15 to attend, which basically covers the cost of food and drink, and comes highly recommended!

Part of this glowing recommendation is that we’ve been lucky enough to work with Ann Finlayson and the SE-ED team again over the past few months as part of the CREST project in Southend-on-Sea. We were at a local school just yesterday and it made me reflect on some of the specific challenges that schools face when addressing environmental sustainability.

Awareness is high but action is difficult

Children and young people – and their educators – are well aware of the challenges of building a sustainable future; if anything, more pressure comes from pupils to learn about global issues than comes from the curriculum. Raising awareness – whilst not a given – is less of a priority now than encouraging and stimulating action.

There are still a lot of easy wins in schools

Let’s split the world of schools in two here: new build schools from the last fifteen years or so, and older schools.

Older schools present a range of easy opportunities, often related to old heating systems and ineffective controls or to lighting upgrades. This is bread and butter stuff for the likes of Salix or for local authority invest-to-save funds. Bigger ticket items – wall and roof insulation, replacement windows – may not stack up economically without some creative thinking (more on this later), but they represent massive gains in comfort and usability of buildings (important when you’re thinking about concentration levels, attention spans and educational attainment).

As for new build schools: every one that I’ve visited (and most of the case studies that I have read) end up with a list of technical issues. Automated systems are often part of the problem – lights that come on or go off without any obvious logic (or any possible override). Underfloor heating that hasn’t been set correctly (or that is then managed badly with temperatures set too high). Highly glazed areas which are like most of the porridge: either too hot or too cold. Corridors designed to be spacious and airy which are simply cold.

I’m not assigning blame here – doubtless there are screeds of contracts being pored over by lawyers to figure out who has liability for fixing what. What I do want to highlight is the experience of a school community in this situation. From a leaky old building that was well-understood, they have been transported into a futuristic box which is very difficult to understand and has limited controls, leaving the school’s management feeling disempowered when it comes to energy saving. Even something as simple as automated lighting takes away the behavioural lesson around switching things off.

Fixing things takes time

… and time is something that a lot of schools don’t have. The schools that have transformed themselves into models of sustainability – whether through behaviour change initiatives, energy efficiency or renewables – are those that have dedicated time and attention to the issues. A number of schools in and around Southend have recently been through a series of Less CO2 workshops, facilitated by Ashden. These schools have been able to grapple with behaviour change / switch off, integrating sustainability into the curriculum and planning for technical retrofit by having the space and time to sit down and plan change.

… and creative thinking

Back to that mention of creativity. It’s hard to pay for a retrofit but there are emerging models that can help, such as energy performance contracting. Flavour of the month at the moment seems to be using income generated from a PV installation to pay for other works: this is fine, even if it provides a perverse incentive which messes with the logical order of the energy hierarchy.

Creativity is also the stock-in-trade of teachers. I am always humbled by the way that teachers can take a concept or a piece of information and transform it into a lesson or activity which will engage and inform. This moves beyond behavioural change / switch off type activities (although these remain important) to wider engagement with the more technical aspects of retrofit, design, technologies and data.

If only we had the drivers…

As we approach an election, we can maybe engage in some wishful thinking about future direction of policy. It would be great to see some real drivers for sustainability in schools introduced, but I’m realistic enough to know that drivers will tend to be soft rather than hard in the coming years. So, absent anything like regulation, what would I wish for?

• A strong statement in support of sustainability in the curriculum and perhaps the rebirth of the Sustainable Schools Framework – ably kept on life support by the Sustainable Schools Alliance for the past few years.
• Closer engagement between schools and the emerging community energy sector to help drive practical projects.
• Greater energy management capacity in local authorities to work with schools – and some clear models for how schools outside the LA system (academies, free schools etc) can also participate and benefit.
• A fund (yes, but only a small one) to help schools get access to energy audits and basic energy management improvements, especially around heating controls. It’s not that exciting but so many problems in schools relate to areas being too hot or too cold and the windows being the main form of control.
• Real encouragement from DfE for schools to engage with energy saving and renewable energy and examples of how others have done it.
• Oh, and a commitment that this will be sustained over the life of the next Government, to help provide some element of consistency and continuity to the supply chain and to schools themselves.

What do you think? Email liz.warren@se-2.co.uk or tweet us @se2limited to tell us your thoughts about schools, sustainability and future direction for policy nationally and locally. And don’t forget to book your place at the SE-ED Conference on 26^th March – I’ll see you there!