I’ve been looking through the Zero Carbon Taskforce’s final report that was published earlier today.
Bowbridge Primary School in Notts
My first reaction is the say that they’ve done a difficult job marrying up government rhetoric with the realities of the front line – and Robin and his team really deserve some credit for that.
They also appear to have got their disappointment in first! They are certainly a good deal more realistic with their targets. The idea of creating prototypes is a good idea in principle, but we’re hardly at Year Zero in this respect, are we? There are already lots of great schools out there.
There are some great examples of schools that have made serious inroads into this issue. We’ve got a bank of more than 170 case studies that we picked up doing our awards in 2009. When I spoke to the Headteacher of the Bowbridge Primary School in Notts (our 2009 winner of the Greening the School Community award), he said that ‘green leadership’ was really key to his success.
Bowbridge are just the tip of the iceberg – there is tons of uncharted human experience in those 170+ buildings and Bowbridge was only one of a significant number of schools that deserve more attention than they are getting at the moment.
All of that said, we think that the Task Force’s analysis (PDF) of the ‘carbon journey’ is a really useful tool for local authorities and schools. Partnerships for Schools have also been tasked to deliver the new ‘Smart Metering’ initiative to help pupils become more aware of energy use issues. This is probably the most understated opportunity here. Greening schools is not just about reducing the footprint of the individual buildings – the educational opportunity is the real prize here.
You can have a look at a Flickr slideshow about Bowbridge here. Remember, all of these pictures are published on a Creative Commons licence which means that you can use them in your publications as long as you say where you got them from – i.e. Pictures courtesy of The Centre for School Design and Bowbridge Primary School.
Related posts:
Do we really think biomass is a way forward for the majority of the estate?
Yes it may be relevant in some specialised cases but should there would be significant draw backs to its wide spread use.
Has the Zero Carbon Task force missed the opportunity for demanding centralised investment in major infrastructure off site renewables or carbon free technologies?
Biomass tends to be the knee jerk reaction to the DCSF C calculator and has a part to play. While it has a bit of a chequered history it can be made to work effectively as long as the building managers acknowledge that it needs a bit more management.
However, what would be much better would be a strategic approach by a school, local authority, BSF provider or even a government region – acknowledging that renewable energy implementation on city centre sites can be difficult but in some rural areas it can be much easier. Higher targets for these (with correspondingly increased investment) could enable those in more difficult locations to be relaxed and overall give better value.
The task force recommended more centralised energy strategy implementation, but this needs much more joined up thinking in central and local government as well as in the private sector. This was recognised as an obstacle which will take many decades to be resolved (if it ever is) and in the context of the brief for the report was therefore not a major part of the way forward.
In the words of Max Boyce – “I know, because I was there…..”
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