Summer update on the Carbon Management Plan

It has been busy in the Sustainability Office this summer in preparation for the exciting forthcoming academic year! As well as plans to get even more students and staff involved with the work that we do, projects have been put into motion behind the scenes by the Facilities Management Building Services Team who are working hard to support us in our drive towards a more sustainable university. The University has set a target to reduce carbon emissions by 30% by 2015/2016 and 40% by 2020 from our 2009/10 baseline. To hit this target we have outlined a number of projects and the investment required in our Carbon Management Plan.

The Carbon Management Plan

The Carbon Management Plan

You can read more about our Carbon Management Plan in previous blogs: http://blogs.gre.ac.uk/greengreenwich/carbon-management-plan-update/ http://blogs.gre.ac.uk/greengreenwich/carbon-managment-plan-progress/ As we have come to the end of the financial year the Building Services Team have given us a brief update on the progress of some of the projects from the Carbon Management Plan. The budget for 2012/2013 was just over £1 million of which the team have spent just under £900,000 on a wide variety of carbon reduction projects across all three campuses. These projects include: Variable Speed Drive units on motors driving fans and pumps (for which the team was awarded Energy Efficient Installation of the Month in March 2013), boiler replacements and installation of thermostatic radiator valves.

Operation of a system with and without a variable speed drive (Image from http://www.carbondescent.org.uk/blog/?p=143)

Operation of a system with and without a variable speed drive (Image from http://www.carbondescent.org.uk/blog/?p=143)

Two major lighting improvement project at Medway and Greenwich by replacing old fittings with new LED ones and installing a multitude of sensors to control them (automatically dimming as well switching the lights on and off). Another major project has been the upgrade of the Building Management System at the Avery Hill campus, which will be completed by the end of September and puts the campus on the Trend system and in line with our other campuses. To reduce corrosion in our heating and chilled water systems the team have installed specialist equipment for removing the noncondensable gases. The feasibility study into a Combined Heat and Power Unit at Medway campus has been carried out and this includes the feasibility of using a zero carbon fuel- glycerol. The findings of this all feed into the Ecotec research project that the University as a major partner in.  To save water the team have converted all of the urinals at Avery Hill to a waterless type and are working across the other two campuses.

It's all glamour- waterless urinal in the Facilities Management office

It’s all glamour- a newly installed waterless urinal in the Facilities Management office

To improve the University’s ability to measure water consumption we have installed a water meter on each of the main buildings at Medway. This project and several others do not reduce carbon output directly, however, the University is committed to tackling water conservation as well as carbon reduction. The remaining technical projects, costing £750,000, are estimated to save around  730 tonnes of carbon per annum. If you have any question regarding our carbon saving projects or the plan itself please contact Nigel Heugh in the Building Services Team N.Heugh@greenwich.ac.uk or Emily Mason in the Sustainability Team E.Mason@greenwich.ac.uk.

Carbon Saving at the NRI Glasshouse and Insectary

Today Charles Whitfield from the Natural Resources Institute tells us about how they are contributing to carbon saving at the University of Greenwich through upgrading and updating the glasshouses and insectary:

Progress on the Glasshouses

Progress on the Glasshouses

Over the last few months the NRI and Facilities Management in conjunction with the University of Greenwich Sustainability Team have made some huge improvements towards reducing energy consumption in our glasshouses and insectaries. The glasshouses were installed over 20 years ago. Although they were built to a very high specification and have lasted well, they have been due for an upgrade for quite some time. The recent refurbishment project has involved:

  • Replacing the old 3mm glass panes with tri-walled, high insulating, polycarbonate sheets (24 – 40 % reduction in heating cost). (For the heating geeks, 3mm glass has a U-value of 5.9 and the new polycarb had a value of 3).
  • Installing new doors with better insulation and seals.
  • Adding light sensors to the hi-lux sodium lamps so that can come on automatically if natural light is too low.
  • Removing the FCU heaters from the ceiling which will vastly reduce heat wastage via open ceiling vents as well as allow more natural light into the compartments.
  • Upgrading the control systems to link the heating and cooling systems so that they work together (rather than individually as before).
  • And finally, preventing the disruption of research and saving precious time and energy, we have replaced all the insect screens to reduce incidences of pest outbreaks in the compartments.
  • Improving online BMS access for the glasshouses so they can be monitored and controlled remotely by NRI technicians

At the same time we have also installed new hoses and water guns to reduce water wastage, and work will soon start on repairing and repainting the floors. In addition, the cleaners spent several sweltering days scrubbing 20 years of limescale from the internal glass partitions.

Cleaners working hard at making the glass see through!

Cleaners working hard at making the glass see through

Energy consumption in the insectaries has been reduced by a number of upgrades to the control systems and ceiling lights. We now have the ability to ‘shut down’ rooms that are not in use. Energy efficient fluorescent lighting has been installed in rooms that originally only had high energy lighting. This allows us to switch over to the energy efficient lighting if the room is not currently being used to grow plants. Not only does this reduce energy consumption by the lights but also reduces the amount of cooling required in the roof space (the high energy lights produce a huge amount of heat). Manual light switches have been added to all the CT rooms in the insectary as well as the EAG room, and post room (so the lights no longer need to be left on all the time).

The finished glasshouses

The finished glasshouses

Overall, these improvements should provide a substantial reduction in energy consumption by the NRI facilities and give users more control of their workspace.

New Member in the Sustainability Team: Meet Emily Crockford

Hello all! I am Emily Crockford and I will be working alongside Kat and John as a sustainability projects officer for Greenwich. It is great to be working for Greenwich and to be back in London and I am excited to be involved with all the fantastic projects happening here.

My love of all things environmental started with my love of the book, ‘The Lord of the Rings’. Amongst my teenage love of Legolas the elf there was one moment that really stuck with me: when the Wizard Saruman orders for the trees of Fangorn to be chopped down to fuel the fires of war I remember thinking that it was all an incredible waste, and so the seed of sustainability was planted!

Legolas hear's Emily calling!

My background is in wildlife conservation after studying my degree with the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent; and I then went onto an internship and volunteering with the RSPB on their London Parks House Sparrow project. If there was one thing that I learnt from other conservationists and in my time trying to conserve wildlife it was that climate change was probably going to undo all our good efforts! It was this that finally nudged me over into sustainability and back to the University of Kent to run their Green Impact project for two years.

Emily Litter Picking

Green Impact is a behavioural change projects aimed at staff to increase their pro-environmental behaviours. The same scheme is run at Greenwich so if you have not heard of this before or think you would like to take part get in touch with us and we will tell you all about it.

While at Kent I also took on the role of Environmental Coordinator for nine months which meant I covered a range of sustainability projects from promoting Fairtrade produce to writing procedure for the ISO 14001 environmental management system. Working in sustainability within Higher Education is extremely satisfying as the range of projects available means there is a lot to get stuck into. I have also found that the diversity of people to engage with makes the whole job a lot more interesting.

At Greenwich I will be predominantly working on carbon reduction, especially in regards to engaging staff and students with the carbon management plan. The University of Greenwich has committed to reducing our emissions by 30% (from our 2009/2010 baseline) by 2015/2016 and it will take everyone’s input to hit this target. If you are interested in how you as an individual can help please do get in touch, and I look forward to meeting and working with you all!

2010 The Year in Sustainability

2010 has been a big year for sustainability at the University of Greenwich, and looking back at what we have achieved I believe we can be proud of how we have taken the University forward.
The successes of the Sustainability Team were reflected in the People & Planet Green League which was released in April when the University of Greenwich jumped from 103rd (2009) up to 61st. Sustainability issues are moving further up the agenda within the higher education sector so it will be difficult to achieve such a large jump this year, although we are of course committed to keep improving and constantly reviewing the University’s approach to sustainability.

January 2010 saw the University of Greenwich present and approve its Sustainability Policy, which can be seen here (www.gre.ac.uk/sustainability/sustainability) and is signed off by the University’s Vice Chancellor Tessa Blackstone. The policy draws together the findings of a baseline review that was conducted to establish the University’s environmental aspects and impacts and develops a policy to deal with these. The policy was drawn together as part of the environmental management system that the University has signed up for (EcoCampus). In the summer of 2010 the University was awarded the Bronze award by EcoCampus and we hope we are just a couple of months away from achieving Silver now.

EcoCampus Bronze Award

With carbon and energy reduction becoming a key priority through the Carbon Reduction Commitment being introduced into UK law and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) introducing requirements linked to carbon reduction as part of their Capital Investment Framework (CIF2), the University has taken some significant steps towards addressing these issues. HEFCE require that each institution should have a carbon management plan submitted by March 2011 and have set a sector wide target of 43% reduction in emissions by 2020 (against a 2005/06 baseline), so many of the cogs whirring away in the Sustainability Team are working towards achieving that target.

On waste the University has seen new bins being introduced at the Greenwich Campus which are divided in two for main two waste streams that the University creates. However the recycling rate at the University varies widely from very good in some areas achieving nearly 70% recycling and the not so good where some areas are achieving no better than 30% recycling. In 2011 waste and recycling will rise up the agenda and as a result we will expect the amount of waste generated to go down along with the amount sent to landfill and the percentage of waste recycled to go up. The University ran a very successful re-use campaign at the end of the summer term in 2010 diverting would-be waste from Avery Hill halls of residences to the benefit of charities through CRISP. Internally the emergence of reusing everything and anything through the University’s own unofficial freecycle of the ‘all-staff-announce’ emails has been a great success – in fact the Sustainability team office is kitted out with many an item first offered on the internal email.

New Bins at Greenwich Campus

Food has been another area of achievement for the University, following on from 2009’s award for discontinuing the use of bottled water in hospitality. The University was awarded the Good Egg award at the Good Food on the Public Plate Awards and were celebrated for five areas of achievement, including the use of organic milk, free range eggs and MSC certified fish. On top of these achievements 2010 saw the first meeting of the Fairtrade Steering Group which includes the Students Union (SUUG), the Medway Student Association (UMSA), ABM (the main University caterers) and Sodexo (who also provide some catering on campus) who are all intent on achieving Fairtrade Status for the University.

Biodiversity has appeared on the agenda for the University in 2010 with the creation of the Biodiversity Steering Group and draft Biodiversity Action Plans have been drawn up for each of the University’s sites. 900m2 has been identified on the Avery Hill Campus for an agricultural grade pollen and nectar bee mix to be planted, which will be great news for the two hives of bees that now occupy the gardens at Southwood House. Greenwich Campus has also seen five hives introduced in 2010 into the mausoleum area, right next to where Sir Thomas Hardy (Nelson’s right hand man) is buried, and all these bees will busy pollinating come the springtime. Good news for anyone who wants to use the fruits of the campus for, blackberry and apple pie, quince jelly or sloe gin (on that note I would have to say 2010 sloe harvest produced a delicious couple of bottles!)

The Sustainability Team has experienced a lot of growth this year, even without the pollination of the bees on hand! Of course there is the very important addition to the team in the shape of the Green Gnome (yours truly) who has been prolific in his blog writing and on twitter, oh and John too, who joined the Sustainability Team in April, and has now signed up for a further 12 months with the Sustainability Team. Along with the direct additions to the team we have now swelled in influence thanks to the creation of the Sustainability Champions Network. There is now a sustainability champion in almost every department helping to promote the University’s Sustainability Policy and to promote environmentally friendly and sustainable practice within their department. To help them do this the Green Impact project has been rolled out for the first time in the University and our sustainability champions are busy implementing tasks such as setting all prin
ters in their department to print double sided, promoting the University’s green travel initiatives and implementing shutdown plans to ensure energy is not wasted over holidays and weekends.

John

Green Gnome

The sustainability champions are proving to be a key communication channel to the wider University community, and that is not the only step towards better communication we have seen. The sustainability website is soon to launch following on from the emergence of the sustainability twitter feed and of course this blog. The Sustainability Induction was introduced for new starters (and existing interested staff) and also for the new student Residential Assistants. Interserve the University’s new suppliers for portering and cleaning had to include their sustainability credentials when tendering for the cleaning contract and this is something that all our suppliers will be expected to do in the future.

New Green Cleaning products

John and Kat became more involved with LUEG, the London Universities Environmental Group, both taking up places on the group’s executive board, and hosted the LUEG AGM at Greenwich in the summer time.

Travel wise John and Kat continue to cycle to work on a daily basis and were both in the top five riders from the University that took part in the TFL London Cycle Challenge in June, Neil Garrod, Tom Barnes and Adele brooks were the other three. Overall the University clocked up more than 10,500 miles, saving around three tonnes of CO2 and burning the equivalent of over 1,500 Mars bars in calories. The University has also been successful in receiving funding from Walking Works to promote walking to, from and while at work and Simon Baldwin from Accommodation walked away with 24 mince pies as a result of winning the walking to work mince pie challenge.

Before this turns into a dissertation I shall sign off with the knowledge that I haven’t even started to tell you about the 100 or so projects identified to go into the Carbon Management Plan, the voltage optimisation units that have been installed, the Greenwich graduate attributes or about many of the other Sustainability success stories that have emerged from the University of Greenwich Sustainability Team over the course of 2010. Here’s to 2010 and to a look towards 2011 hoping that we will be even more successful over the next 12 months. Happy New Year!