An Education in Saving Energy

The University of Bristol is a research intensive university, based primarily in the Bristol city centre, but with facilities across the city as well as in rural Somerset. It has over 300 buildings, with a high percentage of listed and conservation grade buildings.

They have a big environmental impact in the sector:

45,000 tonnes of CO₂

2,000 tonnes of waste

400,000 m³ of water

5,000 staff

15,000 students

The University has had some success in reducing its environmental impact over the last ten years, but over the last three it has really started to tackle whole-institution impacts.

Environmental Management System

• Achieved ISO14001 certification and CEMARS (ISO14064-1:2006) energy efficiency certification for reduced emissions.

Carbon Management

• Have a £20million Carbon Management Plan. £1.5 million has been spent on measures like voltage optimization, insulation, LED lighting and electronic movement sensor TRV’s which has led to a 4% reduction.
• Have generated electricity from PV in the last year, with 165kW of panels.

Water Management

• Upgraded their infrastructure, replacing direct-to-drain cooling systems and ran awareness programme has led to a 9% reduction in water use.

Transport

• A new university bus running from our residences to the main campus has been introduced, leading to 60,000 passenger journeys a month.
• A successful car-club scheme for students and staff has seen 25% growth over the last year. Currently only 21% of staff travel to work by car on their own.
• A Bicycle Surgery run jointly by the Student’s Bristol University Sustainability Team (BUST) and Sustainability Estates has serviced over 500 bikes.

Academic and Business travel

• A JISC funded project is looking at academic travel and ways to reduce the need. Results are due later in the summer 2012.

Waste Management

• 56% of all waste produced is diverted from landfill.
• 65% of office waste is recycled, including paper, cans, plastics, glass, cardboard, confidential waste, toner cartridges, metal, fluorescent tubes, batteries and WEEE.
• 7 tonnes of furniture and other consumables including initiatives in the halls (the ‘Big Give’ which involves local charities).
• Compost 78 tonnes of food waste including running our own rocket composters, reducing carbon emissions from waste by 28%.
• Reducing lab waste with the introduction of Polystyrene, Pyrex and lab plastic recycling.

Procurement

• A new sustainable procurement policy including initial actions on printer removal (to MFD’s) and a furniture tender that includes refurbishment of existing furniture at a third of the price of buying new, we also have ‘Re:store’ a furniture exchange web site.

Green Buildings

• The University has had a policy of achieving BREEAM excellent on new builds and very good on refurbishments
• To date they have achieved three very good ratings and two excellent ratings on refurb’s and 5 excellent rating on new builds. Amongst features included are, LED lighting, low velocity fume cupboards, 4 green roofs and a CHP unit.
• A refurbishment of a hall of residence has seen a 30% reduction in gas use.
• They have also signed up to the government initiative ‘Halving construction waste to landfill by 2012’; work to date shows over 80% diversion from landfill for completed projects.

Engagement

• Bristol University developed Green Impact with NUSSL in 2008 (read more here).

Training

• Sustainability has become an accredited training centre for CIWM. Training and auditing for students is now linked with University initiatives relating to employability via the University’s Bristol PLuS scheme.

What next?

ISO 14001

Expanding their EMS to include curriculum (audit in March – fingers crossed!)

Carbon Management

Optimising three CHP units, changing fume cupboard operation, continued refurbishment of our halls of residence, a £4.5 million reboilering and pump management programme and a £1.5million ‘energy makeover’ of our medical school.

Waste

Implement further recycling and reuse schemes, aim to get as close as possible to zero waste to land fill in the next 12 months.

Engagement

Develop more effective behavior campaigns. Deliver Green Impact Excellence scheme, as well as rolling our Green Impact labs and supporting Green Impact Hospitals for local trusts.

Transport

Creation of a transport hub at our halls of residence and joint working with the four regional local authorities and University of West of England in delivery of the local sustainable transport fund.

Further details at http://www.bristol.ac.uk/environment/

Contact – Martin Wiles – Head of Sustainability

0117 9288034

m.r.wiles@bristol.ac.uk

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

Are you looking to reduce the carbon footprint? Reduce your waste to landfill? Or buy recycled furniture? Why not turn to WECC member Collecteco for help.

Collecteco is a Bristol based company that aims to first re-use and then recycle the vast majority of the waste that it collects. Typically their clearances re-use and recycle in excess of 95% of the waste they collect.

Their waste clearance service collects almost anything; furniture, electrical equipment (WEEE), builders’ waste, hazardous waste, confidential waste, general waste and mixed recycling. From one item to a building-full, their crews sort and load everything onto their collection vehicles to avoid the need for skips. All re-usable items go straight to The Chrysalis, a not-for-profit social enterprise associated with Collecteco, where they are made available to charities, voluntary groups, schools, and small businesses. The Chrysalis offers training opportunities for young people through a programme called ‘Wasted Talent’.

Any organisations or individuals looking for good quality, low cost furniture, equipment and materials can contact The Chrysalis here.

Collecteco can provide you with information of items that been re-used and recycled and also report the carbon savings. For more information call 0117 941 5887 and speak to Steve Sliney.

Engaging Staff in your Business

Are you struggling to engage staff at your business?

We took part in a discussion on The Guardian here on how SMEs can engage employees in carbon reduction. There were some thought provoking questions and responses, with some great ideas from The DoNation, ThinkFutureNow, Carbon Trust, Paul Hardman from the IoD and others on how to get started.

The top ten tips from the discussion were:

1. Get your heart and soul into it, especially at the top

2. Look to embed carbon reduction across your organisation

3. Connect and collaborate within and outside your organisations, with your customers and suppliers

4. Make your messaging positive, interesting and tangible but not overwhelming

5. Start with informal gatherings of staff to initiate discussion and suggestions

6. Measure and benchmark your starting position and capture your financial, environmental and social results

7. Make it a top-down, whole company initiative so that everyone is part of the process

8. Link employees’ efforts to the success of the company and their place in it

9. Get buy-in from the top and shout about it

10. Keep it simple; SMEs are organisations that can change and adapt very quickly so you can adopt a ‘small piece at a time’ policy instead of wholesale change agenda that might be more appropriate for the larger businesses

This was a well-timed warm up for our next network session on staff engagement on March 8^th with Forum for the Future and O2. You can sign up here.