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29 June 2010 |
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 News
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• Deadline approaching for LSE's registration to Carbon
Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme
LSE is in the process of registering for the government's CRC Energy
Efficiency Scheme (previously known as the Carbon Reduction Commitment).
The scheme is a mandatory, energy saving and carbon emissions reduction
scheme for the UK and the School is legally required to have registered
by September.
A requirement of the CRC is that LSE must reduce its emissions in three
categories: Scope 1 and 2 relate to direct emissions from LSE
buildings, furnaces, electricity generation etc; and Scope 3 covers all other
indirect emissions that are a consequence of the activities of the
organisation such as travel.
From 2011, LSE will be required to monitor its emissions and
purchase allowances to emit carbon dioxide (CO2) as part of the EU Emission
Trading Scheme. The more CO2 LSE emits,
the more allowances it will need to purchase. The School is estimated to
have emitted 15,606 tonnes over the past 12 months compared to a 2005-06
baseline of 14,853 tonnes.
Carbon credits are expected to cost £12/tonne until 2013 when free trading will begin. LSE’s financial
commitment in the first trading year, now April 2011 to March 2012, is
likely to be in the region of £142,560.
At the moment the School is in a strong position compared with many other
participants as when it comes to reporting requirements most of the
buildings have Automated Meter Reading. For more on the CRC Energy
Efficiency Scheme click
here or see Howard Davies' Direct View below.
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CO2 vs CO2e - what's the difference? You'll see that we
refer to both CO2 and CO2e in this newsletter.
CO2 refers to carbon dioxide while CO2e means carbon dioxide
equivalents. It is standard practice to report the main
greenhouse gas emissions, such as methane, using the
functionally equivalent amount or concentration of Carbon
Dioxide as the reference. For further information please click
here |
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• LSE100 wins Green Gown Award 2010
LSE100: understanding the causes of things, a compulsory course for
all undergraduate students that was launched by the School in January
2010, has won a prestigious Green Gown Award.
The Green Gown Awards, which were presented at Shakespeare's Globe
Theatre, recognise the exceptional sustainability
initiatives being undertaken by universities, colleges and the learning and
skills sector across the UK. LSE100 The LSE Course: understanding the
causes of things, was pronounced the winner in the Courses category. The
School was commended by the judges for its ‘exciting and bold whole
institution approach. Reflecting a clear commitment and willingness to lead,
LSE has created for its students an invaluable trans-disciplinary space.’
More
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• School maintains Platinum Award for Green 500
LSE has maintained a Platinum Award from the Green 500, the annual
Mayor of London Green Awards which bring London's leading 500 companies
together to reduce carbon emissions.
The award was presented at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on 8 June by Mayor
of London Boris Johnson. The School was commended for having 'diligently
worked towards managing and reducing carbon emissions associated with the
School's own activities. From setting challenging BREEAM policy targets and
installing advanced lighting technology to having its own onsite weather
station, the School has demonstrated continuous improvement in mitigating
its associated climate change impacts.'
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• LSE awarded a First for its environmental work
The School has been awarded a First for its environmental performance
for the second year running by the People & Planet Green League published in
the
Times Higher Education.
The School is ranked as the top university in Central London and comes joint
first, with Kingston University, for greater London institutions. LSE is
placed
15 nationally out of the 133 UK institutions ranked.
The People & Planet Green League 2010 is based on 11 environmental policy and performance-related criteria,
including carbon emissions per head, waste recycling rates, new criteria
measuring each institution's efforts to engage students and staff, and
sustainable catering.
For the first time ever, the Green League 2010 compared the scope and
ambition of universities' carbon reduction plans against sector-wide climate
targets introduced earlier this year by HEFCE.
More
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• Tweets
from the roof gardens
The twitter account - LSEGardens - has now attracted over 100 followers.
It was set up by the Communications team to enable all those involved in
LSE's food-growing roof gardens to share information and pictures. It means we can tweet
the news that the Design Unit strawberries are almost ready to be picked and
the Library potatoes almost ready to be dug up. Staff have also taken their children to the gardens and the pictures can
be seen at LSEGardens.
The gardens are part of the Capital
Growth campaign, which aims to help Londoners transform the capital by
creating 2,012 new community food
growing spaces by the end of 2012. The twitter account will
also allow LSE to convey the more serious
messages about LSE's commitment to carbon reduction. Did you know, for
example, that the Mayor's Climate Change Action Plan features LSE and
commits the capital to a 60 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020? Sign
up to LSEGardens here
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• Travel
Survey
2010 results
Earlier this year all staff and students were asked to fill in a Travel
Survey with their details about their daily travel to and from LSE as well as any
longer-distance School related travel for 2008-09.
The results showed that 95 per cent of staff and students commute to work
either by public transport or through walking or cycling. This equates to a
nominal 7 tonnes of CO2 emitted by staff and student commutes.
Using the results, LSE has calculated that almost 10,000 tonnes of CO2
were emitted as a result of all School-related travel. The survey revealed
that 5 per cent was from
land based travel for business; 21 per cent from air travel for
business; and 74 per cent of emissions came from student air travel to
attend LSE.
The results will allow LSE to see if there are ways that the School can
provide support for the different travel requirements of staff and students.
As part of future funding requirements the data will contribute to updates
of the LSE Carbon
Management Plan which intends to reduce total emissions.
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• LSE achieves EcoCampus Silver status
LSE moved a step closer to achieving its aim of becoming an ISO140001
certified organisation this April, by achieving the EcoCampus Silver
Award.
ISO140001 is the international standard for environmental management
systems. EcoCampus is the HEFCE funded, sector-specific, phased approach to
ISO140001.
An Environmental Management System (EMS) is a tool for managing the
impacts of an organisation's activities on the environment. It provides the
School with a structured approach for continuously planning, implementing,
reviewing and improving on environment protection measures and working
towards environmental sustainability. The EcoCampus Silver Award relates to the implementation of an EMS.
LSE had to identify relevant environmental legislation and regulations;
assess the significance of environmental aspects, and set objectives and
targets for these.
The School is now working towards the Gold Award, which will involve
communication of the EMS across the School, and for people whose role has an
environmental impact to understand how their role relates to the EMS. It is
hoped LSE will achieve Platinum status in the summer of 2011 after which a
conversion to ISO140001 can take place. For more information, please contact:
Victoria Hands, on 020 7955 6618 or email
v.e.hands@lse.ac.uk |
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Green
challenge
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In 2008-09 the LSE campus generated 817 tonnes of waste.
That’s around 68kg, or 817 tonnes for each student and member of staff.
Much of this was diverted from landfill either via recycling,
reuse, composting or waste-to-energy. The 4th Floor
Restaurant currently composts about six tonnes of food waste per
annum, saving one tonne of CO2e. |
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• The 90 per cent recycling challenge
You may have noticed that communal areas
are being are being upgraded with the provision of communal recycling
stations that allow staff to segregate and recycle the majority of their
waste and do away with the individual deskside bins whose content goes
to landfill.
In the NAB this approach has resulted in recycling rates of up to 90 per cent, while
across campus recycling rates are only at 37 per cent. It also minimises the disposal of thousands of plastic bin liners each year.
Although some staff are attached to their deskside bins, we're
encouraging everyone to use the communal recycling stations. We aim to
roll this system out across the School by the end of the year and
increase recycling on the rest of campus to our 90 per cent targets. Are
you up for the challenge?
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Notices
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• Give
your old things a new lease of life
LSE's Re-love campaign collects reusable items from halls and
campus at the end of term. If you have unwanted, unused or unloved items,
please don't send them to landfill, give them the chance to be reloved by
another.
Bring your clean and reusable items to LSE halls of residence or the
Students' Union reception in the East Building. Items such as bedding, books
and stationery, cleaning products, clothes and shoes, crockery, cutlery,
pots and pans and other kitchen equipment, DVDs and CDs, electrical items,
mobile phones, non-perishable sealed and canned food and small furniture can
all find a new home.
Reuse on campus
On campus, LSE diverted over 21 tonnes of reusable furniture at the end of
term last year. Some of this was reused internally via the Estates Stores
and departments can take advantage of this furniture reuse service by
contacting Ron Dale at r.dale@lse.ac.uk.
The LSE Students' Union shop now houses a new Relove section where you can acquire
discounted reused items.
Reuse in halls
The reuse scheme is one way that LSE is working to reduce its
environmental impact and extend service provision to students in halls.
Students can divert unwanted items from landfill and donate for further
reuse internally or with local charities.
For the end of term last year, LSE halls of residence diverted over 20
tonnes of reusable items. The best performance came from Butler's Wharf,
which diverted 32kg per student, followed by Carr-Saunders and Bankside at
just under 10kg per student. We hope that even more items can be diverted
from landfill and kept in use this end of term.
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• Reuse
on film
LSE's reuse activities are featured in a short LSE film that will be posted on LSE's Video
and Audio website shortly.
The 10 minute film demonstrates
the business and sustainability case for reuse and seeks to inspire action
and leadership on implementing or expanding reuse schemes and moving towards
zero waste. The film, which is targeted at university and college senior
management teams, identifies the simple steps for delivering
successful reuse schemes in halls of residence.
Look out soon for further films on climate change, carbon reduction and
zero waste in the Capital, including an interview with Professor Lord Nick Stern,
chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the
Environment, on the
Video
and Audio website.
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• Library
and IT Services staff are invited to Go Green!
Go Green! is the second annual environmental awareness event organised
by members of the Library & IT Services Environmental Management Working
Group. The event, which is open to all staff from the Library and IT
Services, will showcase environmental initiatives carried out by the Library
and IT Services, and provide tops tips on sustainable living.
There will be a swapshop board and a Recycling Challenge, and a
Green Award will be presented to the member of Library or IT Services staff
deemed to be doing the most to contribute to an environmentally sustainable LSE.
The event is open to all staff from the Library and IT Services who can turn up anytime between
12-2pm, Wednesday 30 June in the Library, R301.
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• Green
Audit
of Northumberland House
Northumberland House will be audited in early August for the Green Tourism
Business Scheme (GTBS) Bronze Award as part of LSE's work towards its
Environmental Policy as well as 'greening up' the halls prior to the 2012
Olympics.
The
GTBS is the national sustainable tourism certification scheme for the UK. There are over 150 criteria, which focus on 10
different areas, including energy, waste, water, purchasing, social
involvement and communication.
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 Turning
your thermostat just three degrees lower would save one tonne of CO2 - and could also save 25 per cent on your bills!
Please don't forget to use the reusable internal envelopes
when sending mail within LSE. These can be obtained from the
Post Room and reused up to 40 times. |
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Green
calendar
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• Still time to get involved in Green Impact
Green Impact had a successful first year with 20 Green Impact Teams
signing up from across the School. But there is still time to sign up your
department or division this year as teams will be asked to complete the
Green Impact Workbook and implement practical ideas over the Michaelmas
Term.
More
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• Guerrilla gardening
Richard Reynolds, guerrilla gardener and a London Sustainable Development
Commission 'London Leader', will give a talk about guerrilla gardening on
Friday 2 July, from 1-2pm in the NAB, room 2.14.
Richard Reynolds has been cultivating neglected patches of land in his
neighbourhood of the Elephant & Castle for six years. He said: 'Driven by a
life-long love of gardening, a lack of a garden, and the fun of doing it in
public I found easy opportunities in the abandoned flower beds, neglected
traffic islands and tree pits near me. Since then I’ve gardened alongside
hundreds of others and met a lot of inspiring people who are doing the same
thing as me in corners of their community all around the world. It’s my
hobby, my passion and I’m keen to get more people gardening like this.'
This event is free and open to all with no ticket required but please
RSVP to f.conteh@lse.ac.uk. For more on
guerrilla gardening, see
www.guerrillagardening.org
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• And there's more to come...
To stay up to date with forthcoming events from the Sustainability Team
at LSE sign up to be a Staff Sustainability Champion or visit the Sustainable LSE website.
Forthcoming dates to keep in mind are:
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Residences
round-up
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• LSE Eco-Power Rangers help switch off the lights
Over 200 students, 12 per cent of the residents of the ten participating halls
of residence, signed up to
become Eco-Power Rangers as part of the Student Switch Off Campaign for
the last academic year. These advocates pledged to use energy carefully
and encourage their friends to do the same.
The four month campaign resulted in an average of
seven per cent reductions in electricity usage compared to the year
before. The 263,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity saved equates to
126 tonnes of CO2.
High Holborn tops the LSE leader board, with an average
reduction of 1.12 kWh per student per day. Northumberland comes second
with reductions of 0.88 kWh, followed closely by Carr Sanders at 0.86
kWh.
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• It's
a bee-autiful life
Passfield Hall welcomes some new guests this year, but rather than being
asked for a room deposit, these will pay their rent in honey. In June, Passfield Hall
installed its first of two hives on the
first floor flat roof of Taviton. The hall hopes to have a formal
welcoming of the bees in early July.
Passfield Hall is one of the first halls of residence in the UK to keep
honeybees. It is hoped that these hives will not only give some bees a new home,
but will help raise awareness about biodiversity and the plight of the bee
amongst staff, students and vacation guests. And of course, allow LSE to
produce its very
own Passfield Hall Honey.
The flat roof housing the hives was chosen for its low-wind and
sunny position where the bee flight path is
sufficiently out of the way of residents and close enough to food sources.
The hives are managed by professional beekeeper
Dr Luke Dixon, who is an expert in rooftop and urban beekeeping and a
member of the British Beekeeping Association.
More
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• Waste
not want not
The School has been assessing
how much waste is produced in its halls of residence as one of its aims is
to support the reduction of waste. An audit of all halls of residence
waste for 2008-09 found that the students of Northumberland, Bankside and Passfield
halls produced the least waste over the academic year.
The audit revealed that Northumberland disposed of
an average of 403kg of waste per student, Bankside an average of 416kg per
student and Passfield an average of 550kg per student. The halls producing
the most waste - and therefore the least environmentally friendly - was Anson
and Carleton Road Flats, with an average of 2,074kg waste per student over the academic year.
If you have ideas on how we can reduce these figures then do get in touch.
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Direct
view
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• Howard Davies
In all the excitement of the election, few noticed that in April the
first stage of the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme
came into force. It placed a legal obligation on all institutions using
more than a certain amount of metered electricity a year to buy carbon
credits to cover their carbon emissions.
However, this is just the first step. What the Carbon Reduction
Commitment ultimately means for all universities is that over the coming
years they will be legally required to reduce emissions to contribute to
meeting the UK Climate Change Act. These reductions were laid out for the
sector by HEFCE in February of this year. Put simply, they mean that by 2010
LSE will be required to cuts its emissions by 48 per cent against a 2005
baseline. Universities that fail to achieve these cuts will be fined.
At LSE we take this work extremely seriously, and the aim of this
newsletter is to let you know how we plan to achieve this and how you can
help. I will begin with just two pointers.
Margaret Newson, purchasing manager at LSE, is working on how to make
LSE's procurement more sustainable. Staff will be asked to consider whether
they can reuse items and ensure that new purchases are made from
sustainable providers. This will mean that we'll ask you to re-use desks and
office furniture, and require you to use centrally-approved suppliers.
Students will have noticed that last year 850 shower heads were replaced
with low-flow heads. This proved a little controversial for some but has
resulted in a significant reduction in carbon emissions, and an annual
saving of approximately £95,000 in gas and water expenditure.
It will be through thousands of small actions, such as more economical
showers and more consideration to sustainable purchasing, that we will all
make a difference. Future newsletters will also bring you news of the big
changes the School will make. I look forward to making progress on this
together. |
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60
Second Interview
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• with..... Dr Victoria Hands
I came to the Geography
Department at LSE in 2002 when I won
an ESRC CASE Award. This was for doctoral
research collaborating with the
London Borough of Southwark to find
out how sustainable development
enters planning policy in the UK. I
started working part-time for LSE on sustainability in 2005 and
went full time in 2007. Then in
March of this year I was excited to
be appointed a London Leader,
working with the London Sustainable
Development Commission to
demonstrate what is possible 'on the
ground' at LSE - and therefore other
London-based higher education
institutions - and to promote the
spread of positive action to realise
the vision of London as a benchmark
sustainable city.
To date, what has been the
most successful of the
sustainability initiatives at LSE?
I would have to say the most
successful of the sustainability
initiatives at LSE is the Moving
Towards Zero Waste activities and in
particular the end of term reuse
schemes. The model has developed at
LSE and with HEFCE funding has
expanded to most halls of residence
in the UK - we tracked that eight
universities diverted 85 tonnes of
items from landfill in 2008, saving
650 tonnes CO2e.
Which countries do better than
we do as green champions and is
there anything we could learn from
them?
Costa Rica came top in the Happy
Planet Index 2009, calculated by the
New Economics Foundation, whereas
the UK was 74th. It measures how
much of the Earth's resources a
nation uses and how long and happy a
life their citizens enjoy. The thing
to learn from this is that we are
ultimately dependent on the
environment for our economics and
with this year being International
Year of Biodiversity perhaps we'll
develop new ways of doing economics
whilst respecting ourselves and our
environment.
Where is your favourite place
on the LSE campus?
My favourite place is on the
rooftops - where we are now urban-
food growing!
What gives you the most
satisfaction?
I love putting systems in place
which will develop and continue into
the future.
What did you want to be when
you grew up?
I wanted to be an interpreter. I
used to translate my younger
sister's baby language to my
parents and on our first holiday in France,
when I was about ten, the French kids
asked 'tu parles francais'. I was
so proud to reply 'un petit pois'. I
didn’t realise I'd made a mistake
but that wasn’t the point - we were
having fun trying! I later studied
economics at business school in the
South of France. I learned Spanish
too and more recently Italian - my
favourite. I see my work in
sustainability as being an
interpreter too. Its just a matter
of finding the common language for
mutual benefit.
If you were marooned on a
desert island, which LSE
department/division/student society
would you take with you?
I think the Anthropology Department
would come in handy.
What advice would you give to
new students coming to LSE?
Smile, make friends and question
everything - that’s why LSE
exists in the first place! Rerum
cognoscere causas!
What is your favourite type of
music?
Any genre so long as it has spirit -
I love Gustavo Dudamel conducting
the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra,
listen and watch it on
Ted Talks. |
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Advice
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• Want
to know more?
If you have any questions about the sustainability work going on around
campus or would like to become involved, why not contact one of the many Sustainability
Champions who take active roles in the School's work in this area. A
list of Staff Sustainability Champions is online
here. |
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