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7/29/2019 Delivering on sustainability aspirations when Building Schools for the Future: sharing findings from eco-footprint pr…
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EWB-UK Research Conference 2009
Hosted by The Royal Academy of EngineeringFebruary 20
Author: Christopher J Cleaver & Prof. Peter M Guthrie
Institution: University of CambridgePreviously published: Submitted to ICE/Thomas Telford Engineering Sustainability
Delivering on sustainability aspirations when Building Schools for the
Future: sharing findings from eco-footprint programmes
C. J. Cleaver & Prof. P. M. Guthrie
Centre for Sustainable Development, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street,
Cambridge CB2 1PZ
Email: [email protected]
Abstract
The UK government’s £45bn Building Schools for the Future programme offers unique
opportunities for transformational change in the sustainability performance of schools over the
next decade. Delivering on these aspirations will in part be contingent on sufficient capacity at a
school level to take action over sustainability issues. Findings from an eco-footprint project
undertaken from within the Cambridge University Centre for Sustainable Development have
highlighted both the complexity of capacity building initiatives and showcase an analytical
approach to help building occupiers understand resource flows and prioritise areas for
improvement, such as transport to and from school, and energy use in heating school buildings. In
addition the footprinting process identified key barriers to making such improvements, including
those resulting from leasing buildings under the Private Finance Initiative.
Introduction
The UK government’s £45bn Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme is one of the largestschool capital projects worldwide. Announced in 2003, it has aimed for transformational
educational change across the UK secondary schools. As this paper discusses, there has been a
unique opportunity for sustainability issues to take centre-stage.
Through the Sustainable Schools framework, government has made a coherent attempt to bring
together such issues under one framework; setting out a vision of what, by 2020, a sustainable
school would look like. In spite of these efforts, and even specific aspirations such as making each
new school zero carbon by 2015, some, including a 2007 House of Commons Select Committee
have found the BSF programme wanting, in terms of explicit commitments to sustainability.
This paper, aimed at engineers, architects and decision-makers, picks up this argument, and makes
the case that any such commitments to sustainability should emphasise building local capacity to
own the sustainability process. Furthermore, we draw on evidence from a case study to highlight
some of sustainability issues that such a process might bring to light: an indication of how people
use and occupy buildings and how future design might take account of behaviours and barriers that
have been identified.
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EWB-UK Research Conference 2009
Hosted by The Royal Academy of EngineeringFebruary 20
Author: Christopher J Cleaver & Prof. Peter M Guthrie
Institution: University of CambridgePreviously published: Submitted to ICE/Thomas Telford Engineering Sustainability
Literature Review
Our literature review explores in more depth the two main government policy themes this paper
comments on: the Building Schools for the Future programme, and the National Framework for
Sustainable Schools.
Building Schools for the Future
Capital Investment Context
Levels of capital investment in UK schools have changed significantly in the last ten years; in the
year 1997-8, investment stood just below £1bn per annum; by 2007-8 that had increased to £6.1bn1.
Prior to 2003, this investment was mostly used for building repairs and replacing temporary
classrooms, and the capital delivered in two ways: either straight to schools or through local
authorities. In 2003, a third major strand of capital investment was announced, the £45bn, 15 year
strategic programme Building Schools for the Future (BSF).
By 2007-8 BSF accounted for 43% of school investment, the remainder devolved funding to schools
(also 43%), and targeted funding through local authorities (13%)1. It is the size of the programme
that motivates this paper:
“It is worth emphasising the scale and scope of BSF; there is no project like it anywhere in the world.
Not since the huge Victorian and post-war building waves has there been investment in our school
capital stock on this scale”1
Objectives
When Building Schools for the Future was announced through a 2003 public consultation, thegovernment stated that it was making money available for locally generated plans for educational
transformation. The allocation of funding would be subject to four main criteria:
1. contribution to raising educational standards;
2. the extent of local deprivation and the level of educational need implied;
3. the urgency of need for repair, renewal or complete rebuild;
4. how well organised an individual area is to invest capital funding 2
Delivery Waves
Despite the emphasis on funding for locally generated plans, the government also used language
that suggested this was every bit a top-down programme too: “a programme of rebuilding and
renewal to ensure that secondary education in every part of England has facilities of 21st-Century
standard” 2.
Money was made available in 15 spending waves, each wave restricted to a set of Local Education
Authorities (LEAs) determined by central government and the non-departmental body Partnerships
for Schools (PfS) was set up to oversee the delivery of the BSF process.
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EWB-UK Research Conference 2009
Hosted by The Royal Academy of EngineeringFebruary 20
Author: Christopher J Cleaver & Prof. Peter M Guthrie
Institution: University of CambridgePreviously published: Submitted to ICE/Thomas Telford Engineering Sustainability
Progress
A total close to £6bn has now been allocated over first three waves (2005/6 – 2007/8), and as of
September 2008, schools had opened in 8 of the 17 Local Authorities in Wave 1, and just 1 of the 10
in Wave 23. However, this was well behind the level of progress expected at the start of the project;
with the (then) DfES targeting 100 schools to be opened by the end of 2007, and 200 by end of 20084. In a 2006 interview with the Times Educational Supplement, Chief Executive of PfS, Tim
Byles, was quoted:
“Everyone across government accepts that the early targets were not based on any experience and
were not realistic. We will reset the baseline this year so we have realistic o bjectives […]. The
authorities that were chosen first were those with the greatest needs and some of those have found
it difficult to deliver […]. But we are significantly reducing the problems and I am confident that we
can deliver”1
CritiqueThe Building Schools for the Future programme has been subject to close scrutiny, not least
through press coverage of issues like delays in delivery. More fundamentally, the motivation for BSF
can be challenged; does it really serve educational transformation?
Perceptions that BSF primarily serves the government’s economic interests, by stimulating
economic activity in the construction industry, are worthy of consideration, particularly where
schools call into question the need to re-build / refurbish buildings they feel are currently more than
adequate!
Either way, a 2005 Design Council review on the impact of school buildings found little evidence,
beyond the need for adequate levels of standard for parameters like noise, temperature, light,
ventilation, to support the idea that capital investment alone could inspire educational change5.
Participation
The review did highlight evidence of sustained educational improvements when key stakeholders
(teachers and pupils) are fully involved in making decisions about their own learning environment.
One mechanism for achieving this in BSF has been the Sorrell Foundation, a design charity that
focuses on young people, bridging the gap between the design community and schools 6.
The foundation runs an engagement process with pupils from schools involved in BSF, enabling
them to articulate their design ambitions and priorities on behalf of the pupil body. Anecdotal
testimony from this, received at a Cambridgeshire Environmental Education Service 7 arranged
conference, was positive; students clearly gaining confidence in influencing the design process.
True participation in transformation from school management down, will remain a crucial challenge
for BSF’s success in educational terms.
Sustainability
The focus of this paper is the opportunity Building Schools for the Future presents for a step-change
in national sustainability. As a House of Commons Education and Skills Select Committee report
into BSF contended, the programme made very few explicit commitments to sustainability issues,
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EWB-UK Research Conference 2009
Hosted by The Royal Academy of EngineeringFebruary 20
Author: Christopher J Cleaver & Prof. Peter M Guthrie
Institution: University of CambridgePreviously published: Submitted to ICE/Thomas Telford Engineering Sustainability
despite the growing support for this from policy makers, activists, and, critically, head teachers
themselves1,8.
The most visible of these sustainability issues has been carbon dioxide emissions to which the
government is committed to at least a 60% cut by 2050 compared with 1990 levels. The schools
estate is reported to account for 2% of the UK’s Carbon Dioxide emissions, some 15% of all public
sector emissions1. This, and the contention the role of schools in influencing practice in the wider
community; would suggest making low carbon a central and visible design parameter.
To be approved, BSF designs must reach Very Good or Excellent on the 2006 Building Research
Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) for schools. However, the efficacy of
BREEAM schools can be criticised, Martin Mayfield, associate director of consulting engineering
firm ARUP contending:
“It is a reasonable tool to guide teams in improving the sustainability credentials of a
building. However, it has two characteristics which render it currently inappropriate as a methodology to achieve the degree of carbon emissions required to achieve the 60% reduction target • Only around ⅓ of the assessment relates to carbon emissions. • BREEAM „excellent‟ can be achieved with a relatively minor improvement in carbon reduction” 1
Investment in Sustainability
The up front costs of ‘sustainable’ building technologies to meet carbon targets are non-trivial; the
Sustainable Development Commission estimated the cost of features to meet a 60% reduction in
carbon emissions below 1990 baseline:
“Somewhere in the region of 15%, 20% is what it would cost, but […] if a programme as large as BSF
went consistently for that style of construction and level of requirement, then you would have the
traditional learning curve in business that reduces costs, so I think there should be a good
opportunity, as the BSF programme went on, for that cost difference to come down” 1
Additional capital funding for low carbon schools has since been announced by schools secretary Ed
Balls, amounting to £110m over 3 years for 200 low carbon schools. However, more would be
needed to have an impact across every new BSF school. This could take the form of more up-front
investment, or, more realistically, plans for the number of schools could be scaled back and, the
programme extended through re-allocated capital from reduced operating budgets.
Sustainable Schools
If Building Schools for the Future puts transformation at its heart, we’ve seen the call for thi s to
include a transition towards sustainability. Let us review what this could mean, by looking at the
government’s framework for sustainable schools.
Scope
The government has channelled its sustainability aspirations for schools into a National Framework
that lays out expectations for sustainability by 2020. The framework, Sustainable Schools, was
published in 2006, following the 2003 Sustainable Development Action Plan9,10. It attempts to
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EWB-UK Research Conference 2009
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Author: Christopher J Cleaver & Prof. Peter M Guthrie
Institution: University of CambridgePreviously published: Submitted to ICE/Thomas Telford Engineering Sustainability
achieve full coverage of issues encapsulated by sustainable development through the eight basic
themes (or doorways), and three cross-cutting areas of impact listed in Table 1.
Table 1: National Framework for Sustainable Schools, Department for Children, Schools and
Families (DCSF) 10
3 cross-cutting Areas 8 Doorways for Sustainability (DCSF)
Curriculum (teaching provision and learning)
Campus (values and way of working)
Community (wider influence and
partnerships)
Food & drink
Energy & water
Travel & traffic
Purchasing & waste
Buildings & grounds
Inclusion & participation
Local well-being
Global dimension
Furthermore, behind each doorway there are specific recommendations for action by 2020. For
example on Travel and Traffic:
“We would like all schools to be models of sustainable travel, where vehicles are used only when
absolutely necessary and where there are exemplary facilities for healthier, less polluting or less
dangerous modes of transport.”10
Delivery
Delivery on the National Framework has been largely left to individual schools, backed up by
networking events, OFSTED evaluation, and limited amounts of funding to Regional Government
Offices11. The Department for Children Schools and Families has published a number of documents
on its online portal Teacher Net to guide schools through the process of whole school change. Of
these, the S3 Evaluation Toolkit for school management is perhaps the most significant12.
There are signs that progress has been made on a local level. The National College for School
Leadership (NCSL) has been a significant player in fostering this, commissioning a wide-scale piece
of research into leadership qualities needed to move the sustainability agenda forward. Managed by
environmental NGO, WWF UK, the research highlighted that a significant number of leaders were
developing sustainability within their school “…with passion and conviction, underpinned by
personal values”8.
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EWB-UK Research Conference 2009
Hosted by The Royal Academy of EngineeringFebruary 20
Author: Christopher J Cleaver & Prof. Peter M Guthrie
Institution: University of CambridgePreviously published: Submitted to ICE/Thomas Telford Engineering Sustainability
Critique
By its own admission, DCSF has “significant influence, but surprisingly few levers” in achieving the
sustainable schools vision11. There is certainly some way to go before the vision is universally
achieved, bought-into or even known. For example, insiders have found the Teacher Development
Agency, unlike the NCSL, slow to take up the vision and lead change in new teacher training.
The Sustainable Schools framework has also been challenged on how far it covers the main
sustainability issues. Protection of bio-diversity, a national strategic priority (e.g UK Biodiversity
Action Plan13), is given scant coverage. Its latest plans show DSCF is attempting to address this
critique, but it remains to be seen whether the framework is by itself challenging enough – can each
doorway be achieved, and yet the school not be truly sustainable?
Capacity Building
Capacity building for sustainable design and operation of schools, appears to have been an
overlooked element of the Building Schools for the Future programme. The Design Council reviewhighlighted a robust body of evidence showing the need for deep stake-holder engagement to
achieve transformational educational change. Meanwhile, the national Sustainable Schools
framework, has been shown as just this type of change process, relying on leadership of school
management, and input of teachers and pupils.
If, as seems desirable, sustainability is to be incorporated into Building Schools for the Future, then
effort must be put not only into more ambitious targets, and funding for building fabric
improvements, but also into increasing local capacity to engage in a wider change process.
Therefore, we argue that long-term sustainability will be best served by sufficient local capacity
to engage with whatever sustainability issues present themselves over the next 10-15 years,and not through changes in the building fabric alone.
Evaluating local capacity
Let us put more detail to help recognise and evaluate what ‘sufficient local capacity to engage’
could look like. Many of the ideas in this field originate in the Environmental Education movement,
for which the 1977 Tbilisi Intergovernmental Conference on Environmental Education was milestone
event. The call for enabling capacity building processes has been made explicit by numerous
practitioners from David Orr (1991 principles of eco-literacy)14 to Vare & Scott (2007 conception of
ESD 1.0 & 2.0)15.
Early models of capacity building (and indeed many current health campaigns) assumed a linear
causal relationship between firstly increased understanding, then negative or positive attitudes and
finally skills / behavioural change. However, research has found that in reality there is a rather more
complex set of factors affecting behaviour16.
Table 2 shows the environmental citizenship behaviour model, developed by Hungerford and Volk
in 199017. A striking feature is how much is involved in progressing to becoming a genuinely active
citizen; suggestive of a slow and deep process, catalysed but not completed by one-off
engagements. The authors claim the model is a better predictor of actual behaviour than the simple
linear relationship from understanding to attitudes and action. Useful, perhaps, to BSF schools inevaluating their own capacity for sustainability and a tool we use in the analysis that follows.
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EWB-UK Research Conference 2009
Hosted by The Royal Academy of EngineeringFebruary 20
Author: Christopher J Cleaver & Prof. Peter M Guthrie
Institution: University of CambridgePreviously published: Submitted to ICE/Thomas Telford Engineering Sustainability
Table 2: Environmental Citizenship Behaviour: from Hungerford and Volk, 199017
Entry Level Ownership Level Empowerment
Selected variables:
Environmental sensitivity
Knowledge of ecology
Selected variables:
In-depth knowledge about
issues
Personal investment inissues
Selected variables:
Knowledge of and skill in
using environmental action
strategies
Locus of control
Intention to act
Case Study FindingsThe discussion has thus far centred on Building Schools for the Future, and the National Framework
for Sustainable Schools. At this point we share some of the spin-off findings from a school project
that aimed to build local capacity for achieving more sustainable consumption. Although we are not
advocating eco-footprinting programmes as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ methodology; the findings do offer
insight into the way school buildings are used, and the need for and process of building local
capacity building to achieve sustained change.
Topic: Eco-Footprinting
The research was conducted from the Centre for Sustainable Development, at the Department of Engineering in Cambridge. The concept was to assist schools in calculating and interpreting the
‘eco-f ootprint’ of their school’s resource consumption.
‘Footprinting’ as a methodology for learning and empowerment with schools is by no means
unique, and similar approaches have been taken by other groups; most significantly WWF
Scotland18.
History
Ecological Footprint Analysis originates in a desire to understand the role productive land plays in
sustaining economic systems. It focuses on supply and appropriation of productive land, and usesglobal hectares (gHa) as its unit, defined as the world average productivity of one hectare of land in
converting solar radiation to biomass energy. Natural supply of productive land is labelled bio-
capacity, whilst human-kind’s appropriation is labelled ecological footprint.
Global Results
Much of the work to build a research base and establish standards has been taken forward by the
group Global Footprint Network (GFN)19. Not without its critics20, 21, the resultant eco-footprint
indicator has gained some limelight; the latest 2008 GFN study finding UK’s average ecological
footprint (5.3 gHa/person) to be well over double world average bio-capacity (2.1 gHa/person)22. The
message portrayed is that humans are effectively living beyond the regenerative capacity of theearth; unsustainable if in the long-term.
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EWB-UK Research Conference 2009
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Author: Christopher J Cleaver & Prof. Peter M Guthrie
Institution: University of CambridgePreviously published: Submitted to ICE/Thomas Telford Engineering Sustainability
Studies found that in the UK, like most ‘northern’ countries, ecological footprint is dominated (57%)
by demand for fossil fuels, accounted for in the footprinting method as the land area that would be
needed to sequester carbon dioxide released in combustion. Other significant contributors included
the crop, forestry and pasture land required to supply resources to our industrial economy and
households
22
.
Case Description
The eco-footprint project built on prior work carried out with eleven secondary schools abroad; in
September 2007, a UK comprehensive school were invited to work on a similar programme.
Setting
The school, of 1130 pupils (2007-8), and upwards of 70 teachers and staff was a rural comprehensive
in the midlands. Found in a large village of over 6000 population, it is fed by 8 primary schools from
local villages. Its GCSE exam results typically put it within the upper tier of schools in its Local
Education Authority. The school was recently rebuilt under a Private Finance Initiative contract(early 2000s).
Team
The work was taken forward by the school’s ‘Gifted and Talented’ programme coordinator, as an
extra-curricular initiative. She was supported by a set of resources, and two detailed briefings from
the Cambridge team. She brought together a team of twelve Year 9 students to work on the project
with ongoing support from Cambridge.
Over a period of 8 weeks, the students went through a process of tackling their problem mandate,
identifying and estimating important resource flows, processing and interpreting their data andfinally, preparing and delivering a presentation to an external ‘expert’ audience.
Methods
The Cambridge team collected data throughout under the terms of an agreement that protected
the anonymity of those involved. Video recordings of classroom processes, and semi-structured
interviews were the main methods of data collection:
Document
Review
(Archived)
Survey
(Archived)
Interview
(Audio-
Recording)
Participant-
Observation
(Video Recording)
School School Documents During Project
Research Team Project Timeline
EF Calculator
PowerPoint
Presentation
Student
Workbooks
Project
Introduction
Project Meetings
Final Presentation
Individuals Pre-Project
Post-Project
Once, during
project
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Author: Christopher J Cleaver & Prof. Peter M Guthrie
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Local Capacity for Sustainability
We earlier stressed the importance of building local capacity to take ownership of sustainability
issues in new school design. The observations from the following the students’ eco -footprint projectwill help with examining the process of taking ownership of sustainability:
A) Entry
Indicators for the most basic level of environmental citizenship behaviour include environmental
sensitivity, and knowledge of ecology. In our case, there were reasons to suggest that some of both
were pre-existing. Not only are these topics covered in students’ basic curriculum, but also there
was clearly some support from school for special engagements:
“Deputy Head: We think it‟s important for our students to get involved with as many national issues/global issues as we can … … a teacher did a project where we did a whole school footprint thing two years ago,based on the Al Gore movie, when it first came out”
B) Ownership
Personal investment in issues is a key indicator for developing environmental citizenship behaviour.
Although there were differing levels of ownership displayed, the sense of personal investment was
sometimes palpable:
“ Beth: It's like we are all getting taught that the world is heating up and stuff like that,but you don't get any figures that is saying like how we're doing it. If you find out yourself, you get shocked by how much we are actually using”
Deep knowledge of issues is a crucial second element to the ownership dimension. A shortcoming
of the footprinting project was that students did not gain a deep understanding of Ecological
Footprint Analysis, perhaps lacking easy access to suitable background material. They did, however,
build an understanding of the ins and outs of school consumption practices:
“Grace: No, but technicians are going to use more electric…[and] they might wear more clothes.
Mary: That's like saying the PE teachers have to change.
Grace: They do ”
And they had gained an appreciation of the most significant contributors of school consumption:
“Lucy: transport contributed a lot to the footprint. Shelter was the biggest contributor
Beth: we found some major contributors such as paper, shelter, travel
Dawn: Shelter was the highest contributor”
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Author: Christopher J Cleaver & Prof. Peter M Guthrie
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C) Empowerment
The final dimension identified by Hungerford and Volk is empowerment; covering knowledge of
and skill in using environmental action strategies, locus of control, and intention to act. Criticism
has been directed towards the gap between self-reported environmental attitudes and actualbehaviour; effective capacity building programmes should attempt to address this.
In our case, we identified a mixed level of empowerment behaviours. The beginnings of all three
components can be found in one student’s declaration at the end of their presentation:
Harry: We are going to be continuing our project, and we're going to deliver our results to the school governors. We're going to get them to improve our school ecological footprint. And we must educate staff and students, and parents, on all these issues, and they can reduce our ecological footprint
Whilst some group members where clearly engaged by the project, changing some of their personal
habits, others, for quite legitimate reasons, did not:
Panel Member: I want you just to think of how this project has changed your consumption personally, have you actually done anything differently?
Harry: I'm constantly turning off lights
Teac her: And I'm changing my car! I've actually started looking… my car does 25 miles to the gallon, which is rubbish
Mary: I've done absolutely nothing
Remarks
The above gives a sense of the complexity of changing behaviour, and the stages towards taking
informed action on sustainability issues. The footprinting methodology itself seems to have value in
promoting a pseudo-analytical approach to sustainability, allowing pupils to invest time in
collecting information, and focus discussions about how to make improvements. It is these benefits
we seek to explore in the final section of the paper.
How a School is Used
Here we look at the eco-footprint group’s headline findings; what were the local sustainability
issues this study brought up, how far do they map with pressing design concerns?
It may be worth establishing the legitimacy of these questions in the face of a potential lack of
rigour in the group’s footprinting process. The answers do reflect the level of thinking and
experiences of real school occupants given basic (and repeatable) stimuli for thought. To aid
interpretation we make comments to indicate of the accuracy of data collection. The headings:
transport, shelter, goods etc. are consistent with footprint standards and were used in breaking
down data collection / presentation.
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Author: Christopher J Cleaver & Prof. Peter M Guthrie
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Mobility
The students’ data collection covered pupil and teacher’s transport to and from school, and drew on
a transport survey recently undertaken by the Local Education Authority. They found the eco-
footprint of transport; fossil fuel use to power vehicles, to be one of the largest contributors. This is
consistent with Digest of UK Energy Statistics that, at 36.5 %, puts transport as the greatest singleend usage of energy23.
Students were set the task of considering solutions to reducing schools’ eco-footprint in all areas.
Here, most of the students’ energy went into highlighting offenders:
“ Harry: There's around six four-by-fours in our staff car park. [Harry looks at T who starts laughing, everyone laughs] and one of them lives just across the road, and d rives a four by four to school”
However, coherent ‘high impact’ solutions such as upgrade of the bus fleet, incentives to walk,
cycle or travel by bus were not conceived, the problem possibly too complex to invest time in action
strategies.
Shelter
The usage of gas, electricity and water in creating a sheltered environment, were all included in the
student’s survey. Data from on-site energy bills can be assumed to have had a good degree of
accuracy. There was, however, some difficulty in obtaining the necessary information, as it was
owned by the site Manager, an employee of the PFI contractor. Roughly equal to mobility, the eco-
footprint of shelter came out to be the largest of contributor overall. Again, this is consistent with
overall trends in energy usage.
A discussion about reducing shelter usage initially focused on wasteful practices such as interactivewhiteboards and lights being left on. Prompted by an ‘expert’ panel member the conversation
honed in on the school’s heating system. The students complained:
Beth: We have problems, because half of the school is boiling, and half of the school is absolutely freezing. It just depends, and then down the corridor its absolutely boiling.
Grace: We've told them so many times, on questionnaires they hand out. Because they hand out questionnaires to see what we think of the school. And we've said that quite a few times and nothing's happened.
Beth: Sometimes if we're in English, we'll have all the windows open, and its still really hot. So we'll have someone come down from Science, and they'll take the temperature. And there's like a restriction on how high it's meant to be or something.
Could something be done to reduce this seemingly wasteful consumption? The students identified
one mechanism of change, inspired by a question about the potential benefits of wider uptake of
eco-footprinting:
Beth: it would push the [PFI] companies and the schools to change, if the whole,like, country were doing it.
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Author: Christopher J Cleaver & Prof. Peter M Guthrie
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Grace: Because of the comparison, if you compare that to a school that's not run by...
Beth: And the companies would want to make their school [better]
Expert: [PFI Contractors] probably want to turn down the heating in the school,because they spend less money. But if they did that without this exercise, you'd be all up in arms because they would be accused of freezing children to death.Whereas if you did it under this scheme, it facilitates them to save money, and that might be used as a lever to do things that actually cost them money as well.
Food & Goods
Food consumption, typically one of the largest contributors to a community’s ecological footprint,
was estimated by a survey sent to a sample group of pupils. Meanwhile the yearly usage of goods
like paper, furniture and electrical equipment was estimated from surveys sent to departmental
heads. Students had some difficulty in this area with processing results into a form suitable forentry into the generic footprint calculator.
The idea of improving sustainability by sourcing local food was raised (although, interestingly, there
was no provision for testing this in the eco-footprint calculator). Again the issue of lack of control
was central, as both the teacher and pupils comment:
“Harry: What could school do about [its food footprint]? as T said, the sc hool isn't run by its own council, it's run by [a PFI contractor], therefore we don't have any say in the food which they use, so they obviously use what is cheaper, so we don't have any say in all of that.”
“T: We've had massive problems with the vending machines, because of Alfred McAlpine refusing to take them away. Because they were full of confectionary, and we want to encourage healthy eating. We had an absolute nightmare, they've done it now, but it took absolutely ages. Because they want to make mo ney, you see.”
Remarks
The footprinting project brought to light some relatively simple things a school could do to reduce
its environmental impact. It is clear that when buildings are designed without sustainability in mind
and their occupants are concerned by a multitude of other interests; peer relations, success or
failure in classes etc, the resulting resource flows can operate some way from sustainable levels.
When prompted to quantify and reflect on this, it was striking that the students put so much
emphasis on the need for behaviour change as opposed to technological change. Despite the
engagement, much could still be done to teach and enable a commitment to practical, affordable
and strategies for change.
The barriers to such change hinted at by tenure under a PFI contract can only increase the
significance of these findings to Building Schools for the Future programme.
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Author: Christopher J Cleaver & Prof. Peter M Guthrie
Institution: University of CambridgePreviously published: Submitted to ICE/Thomas Telford Engineering Sustainability
Conclusions
The significance of our fieldwork, within the context of national programmes for change, may be
summarised:
Commitments to sustainability in Building Schools for the Future could be made more explicitto better reflect other policies put forward by government such as the Framework for
Sustainable Schools;
We contend that both long-term sustainability, and educational change, will be best served if
there is sufficient local capacity to take ownership of local issues
However, the process of building capacity for change is both complex and requires a long-term
approach that takes heed of lessons learnt elsewhere
There is a danger that the PFI process used in Building Schools for the Future will create barriers
that prevent building teachers and students from taking ownership of and continually
responding to changing sustainability issues
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http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/delivering-on-sustainability-aspirations-when-building-schools-for-the-future 14/14
EWB-UK Research Conference 2009
Hosted by The Royal Academy of EngineeringFebruary 20
Author: Christopher J Cleaver & Prof. Peter M Guthrie
Institution: University of CambridgePreviously published: Submitted to ICE/Thomas Telford Engineering Sustainability
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