Green is the word

The University received a ‘first’ rating for our environmental performance and was ranked eighth equal out of 120 UK universities in the recently published People & Planet Green League 2007.

Environmental officer Dr Keith Pitcher said:“Staff and students are asking what they can do to tackle climate change, and our success in this area should be a key marketing point for the University.

“During the first seven months of this academic year, for example, we achieved a 2% reduction in electricity use. When you consider that, historically, electricity use has increased by 3% year on year, this should be seen as a real achievement.”

Campus-wide new buildings are being constructed with environmentally sustainable features to help achieve our target of a 10% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2010. The iconic Marjorie and Arnold Ziff Building will incorporate chilled beams, which are a low-energy air-conditioning solution, and the building design has natural ventilation and solar shading.

An ecologically sound ‘living roof’ will be an attractive feature of the new performance arts centre and theatre. The soil and plants will add an extra layer of insulation, keeping the building cooler in summer and warmer in winter. It should also help to reduce stormwater runoff and filter air impurities.

Due to be completed next month, the £11m Charles Thackrah Building for health sciences uses sustainable cedar panels containing natural resins. Toilets will be flushed using grey water, and cycle stands and showers will encourage staff to cycle to work.

It doesn’t stop there; photovoltaic and solar thermal panels have been installed on various buildings to provide hot water and electricity, and new heating boilers fuelled by recycled wood scraps from forestry operations are likely to be installed at Bodington Pavilion and Devonshire Hall this year. These would require 100 tonnes of fuel and it is intended that the equivalent amount of energy crops will be planted on the University farm.

In 2006 the School of Geography became, as far as they know, the UK’s first carbonneutral geography department. “Our motto is simple: Reduce where we can, offset where we can’t,” said the school’s environmental co-ordinator, Dr Louise Waite. Individuals are encouraged to take responsibility by turning off computers when not in use, switching off lights as they leave a room, printing paper double-sided, and using the department bike to get to meetings.

Right across campus, we can congratulate ourselves for doubling our collective recycling effort from 16% in 2003 to over 34% in 2007, after 2,000 recycling bins were installed to replace office waste bins.

Great advances have also been made in the area of travel, with a 15% reduction in staff driving to work (as a driver or a passenger) since 1999, and more than 100 staff have hired bikes through the University’s new ‘cycle to work’ scheme. There are also 266 members signed up to the car sharing scheme, while a further 481 people bought discounted MetroCards this year for bus and train travel.

Leeds has rightly received a host of awards for its environmental efforts, including a score of nearly 90% in the 2007 Business in the Community Environmental Index (BITC), and a second Green Gown award for ‘continuous improvement’. The University will be presented with a gold award in the new Cleaner, Greener business awards in a few months.

Dr Pitcher said: “We’ve achieved this success thanks to overwhelming backing from students and staff, and a really good team effort. We now want to identify and implement many more carbon-saving projects to continue this excellent work.”

For more information, visit www.leeds.ac.uk/environmental

Here’s how we can all help to conserve energy:

1. Switch off your computer screen when away from your desk. Set your screen saver to ‘blank’ (settings > control panel > display > screen saver).
2. Put your computer on ‘stand by’ mode (start menu > shutdown > stand by) while you’re at lunch, in a meeting, or giving a lecture.
3. If possible, switch your computer off at the mains when you go home at night. This will avoid emitting an extra 240kg of carbon dioxide a year.
4. When printing, make your pages doublesided to save paper and energy – just click on print > properties > print type > double-sided.

Photo: (Above) Cutting down on the University’s carbon emissions is all in a day’s work for transport co-ordinator Steffi Hasse and environmental officer Dr Keith Pitcher.