Thousands of students across our schools in Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Lincolnshire have signed up to ‘Captain Carbon’s’ mission to battle against energy waste – helping our schools to become greener.
Almost 30% of all energy used in the UK is wasted, so we have launched a campaign to encourage our schools, staff, and students to become more sustainable and support our plan to become Net Zero by 2030.
‘Captain Carbon’ has burst into life across our 28 schools following the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) and asks the schools to work together to create an action plan that helps to reduce wasted energy.
Within the context of rising energy prices and budget pressures in the education sector, despite the government’s Energy Relief Scheme, the campaign will also help to make sure the school’s budgets are used most effectively to invest in improving the education experiences for its young people.
‘Captain Carbon’ will ask schools to join the fight by focusing their actions on turning it off, turning it down, keeping it closed and keeping it under control.
Martin Hair, Director of Estates and Facilities at Meridian Trust, said: “We all know we need to play our part in becoming more sustainable and reaching the UK’s target of becoming Net Zero by 2050. As a Trust, we have already been successful in securing almost £4million through the Public Sector Decarbonisation Fund to complete various energy and carbon saving projects across eight of our school sites. This work includes a data driven approach to maximising our impact, by removing gas boilers and installing air source heat pumps, solar PV, insulation and improving Building Energy Management Systems. This work will help to remove at least 600 tons of carbon emissions each year from our carbon footprint.
“’Captain Carbon’ is designed to be a fun and imaginative way to bring all our schools together to focus on an incredibly serious issue affecting our planet and placing significant pressure on school budgets. We hope the campaign will help to establish good sustainable behaviours, making sure things, such as lights in classrooms are turned off when they are not being used, and that windows remain closed when heating systems are working.”
The campaign comes after our annual energy budget rose by more than £2.5million year-on-year following the recent energy price rises.
Martin added: “The recent energy price rises have added a further dimension to our plans. Not only are we now investing in a more sustainable future, but we also need to make sensible decisions that allow our school leaders to use their already stretched budgets to provide high quality experiences and opportunities to support every child achieving their potential. We would much rather be using our budgets to provide better opportunities for young people than heating old and inefficient buildings and systems.”
Alongside ‘Captain Carbon’, we have applied for further funding from the next phase of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Fund, where we hope to implement substantial energy efficiency projects across more of our schools. We are also completing a Christmas shutdown competition to encourage our schools to reduce energy usage during holidays.
For more information about the Captain Carbon campaign, please visit meridiantrust.co.uk/captain-carbon.