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20 March 2015 |
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 News
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Retrofits to cut 8 per cent of LSE’s carbon footprint
LSE is retrofitting energy efficiency measures in ten of its buildings,
to cut the School’s carbon footprint by 8 per cent.
The School has invested £2.3m in 72 individual projects, backed by
the Mayor of London’s ‘RE:FIT’ scheme, which gives interest-free loans
to boost energy efficiency in public sector buildings. Building work
starts this week, and the projects will take around a year to be
completed.
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Sustainable Projects Fund winners
2015
Seven student and staff sustainability initiatives have been given the
go-ahead by LSE’s Sustainable Projects Fund. The winning projects, which will
receive a total of £13k, are:
- A green finance conference held by the Oikos Society
- Screens to display live energy consumption of LSE buildings
- Social break-out spaces with solar phone-charging points
- Planting nectar-rich shrubs on LSE roofs to feed bees and promote
biodiversity
- A campus poll on cycling facilities by the student and staff Bicycle
User Group
- A healthy and sustainable recipe book, by and for LSE students
- Using biochar to boost soil fertility in roof gardens
The projects were chosen after a hard-fought battle, with 12 entrants vying
for funding. The calibre of applications was excellent, making the selection
committee’s job very difficult! The committee was drawn from a cross-section of
the LSE community, plus a Sustainability Director from PwC. We look forward to
these projects coming to fruition over the coming year, and making a positive
impact across LSE.
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Green Week
A successful Green Week was held on 9-14th February to raise
awareness of sustainability issues on campus and around the globe.
Highlights included a public lecture by Green Party leader Natalie
Bennett, a sustainable fashion show, free cycle training, a food waste
event run by LSE Catering, a Dr Bike maintenance session to mend those
creaks and squeaks, and debates and film screenings. A whole three
hours' worth of waste was displayed on Houghton Street to highlight topics around
recycling and quantity of rubbish we produce. Staff and students were
also invited to sign a new LSE beehive, with Craig Calhoun signing the
hive and making his own green pledge. Green Week was held by the
Sustainability Team, LSESU, and a whole host of student societies, and
was attended by over 500 people. Find out more about what went on by
reading the
Sustainability blog.
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LSE’s sixth consecutive Green League ‘First Class’
award
LSE achieved a ‘First Class’ award in the
People and Planet University League (formerly ‘Green League’), which
ranks UK universities on their environmental and ethical performance.
LSE has stayed in the top tier of the League for six years running -
something only achieved by six other institutions in the UK. The School came 26th place overall.
The University League is created by People and Planet – a national
student campaign group which promotes sustainability in universities –
and is published annually in The Guardian.
The complexity of this year’s League attracted extensive debate
within the higher education sector, with many institutions not
submitting data to People and Planet. Whilst LSE recognises these
concerns, the School’s Director of Estates Julian Robinson commented
that "LSE participated in the Green League in line with our ongoing
commitment to improving our environmental sustainability, as well as
that of the sector. We will continue to enhance the campus, deliver
excellent teaching and research, and work with everyone in the LSE
community and beyond in order to achieve this".
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Jeremy Leggett Public lecture
The Sustainability in Practice public lecture series returned this
term with an exhilarating talk from Jeremy Leggett, the founder of
Solarcentury and SolarAid.
The lecture discussed the unfolding solar revolution and gave an
insider’s view of the battle to end the age of oil, followed by a lively
debate. At the lecture Jeremy also launched an innovative new project: a
series of live diary extracts that tell the story of the turnaround from
fossil fuels to renewables, and what this means for the world. The
podcast of the lecture is now
available online. You can sign up for Jeremy Leggett’s diary
extracts on his
website.
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LSE halls win Bronze ‘Food for Life’ Catering award
LSE's four catered halls have achieved the coveted ‘Food for Life’
Bronze catering award!
Food for Life ensures food outlets serve a high percentage of fresh,
seasonal, local, organic produce and high welfare meat and sustainable
fish. This means that the 8,630 meals a week being served at LSE's halls
of residences are recognised as being of a high standard.
Eating well is at the heart of everything LSE Catering does, and also
underpins all-round wellbeing. So enjoy ‘tucking in’! |
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Notices
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Recycling – Legal Insight.
The EU has recently set ambitious recycling targets as part of a
package of measures to move towards the ‘circular economy’.
These include a 70 per cent recycling rate for municipal waste,
80 per cent recycling for packaging and a ban on recyclables
being sent to landfill by 2030 among others. Meanwhile closer to
home, in 2013-14 LSE achieved a combined composting and
recycling rate of 59 per cent - clearly on our way to meet the
proposed targets!
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Green Impact update On Wednesday
4 March a mighty 42 teams submitted their Green Impact workbooks, having
been working away for several months on many projects to green up their
offices.
Some project highlights include a Sustainable Office Move Guide, setting
up a Bike User Group, and Friday lunchtime debates followed by homemade
vegetarian buffets. After the teams have been audited, all at LSE are
invited to the Annual Celebration of Sustainability event on Thursday 21 May
in the Shaw Library, which will highlight and reward all sustainability
projects across the campus.
Click
here to find out more about Green Impact.
Meanwhile, we’ve had feedback that although many teams support Green
Impact’s aims, it should be less time-consuming and more fun. We’re planning
to revolutionise Green Impact for 2015-16 - if you want to be part of that
discussion, please get in touch with Vyvyan Evans at
v.evans@lse.ac.uk.
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Recycling round up The Maintenance Team are replacing all 200 clocks in LSE public areas
with new wireless clocks, to save them the labour-intensive task of changing
the time twice a year on each one. But the old clocks haven’t been thrown
away – we’ve found good homes for them, including at London Metropolitan
University.
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Bee hive make over
It’s all going on at the top of Connaught House! A new
beehive is set to be installed in the next few weeks, to join the two other
hives already on the roof.
The
LSESU
Beekeeping Society recently held a design competition to paint the new
beehive. Laura Price, an undergrad Government student, won the competition
and has since painted her design on to the hive. We hear it’s already the
talk of the town and bees as far as Clapham will be paying a visit. Find out
more about the Beekeeping Society and get some tips on
painting a beehive. (Photo courtesy of
Martin Cervenansky.) |
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As the weather is brightening up at last, you may be starting to
plan your summer holidays or a spring break. Why not make it a
real adventure and travel by train? Less stressful than flying,
and it means you can soak up the scenery. You could even take your
bike on the train. The Man in
Seat 61 is the guru of international train travel. Covering
everything from routes to ticket prices and special offers, it
contains all you need to plan your trip.
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Residences
round-up
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Student Switch Off If you’re in halls of residence
and reading this, I hope unused appliances are unplugged, and the lighting
is not ablaze - as the annual inter hall energy saving competition is well
under way!
Carr Saunders won the competition in 2013-14, saving 59,286 kWh of
electricity – a reduction of 4.1 per cent compared with 2010-12. Join the
LSE Student Switch
Off Facebook page to enter energy saving photos and win Ben and Jerry’s
ice cream!
The hall that wins this year also gets £250 for their Halls Committee to
spend in their residence. |
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60
Second Interview
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with.....Francesca
Matano I’m the Moves and
Logistics Manager at LSE, and have
worked in the Estates Division for
five years. No day is the same and
it’s always busy! Estates play a
huge role at LSE and it’s great to
be a part of that. I love to travel,
and am
getting married in September to my
fiancé Ross!
What does your job involve?
My job focuses on relocating
staff and students on the LSE
campus. This can be individual moves
or whole building relocations like
32 LIF and SAW. It’s a great job
because I cross over with so many
areas of the School as well as
meeting all the departments and
interacting with students. People
don’t like change, so moving them
out of an office they have used for
15 years can seem daunting – however
I try to make the process as smooth
as possible. I also get involved in
small Capital Development projects
and signage.
How does your job link into
Sustainability on campus?
When we carry out office moves
we encourage the reuse of furniture
as this saves the School lots of
money and it’s more sustainable.
Reusing a desk from East Building to
Sardinia House, compared to ordering
a new desk, saves not only money but
the carbon emissions for that desk
to be produced, shipped and
delivered to the campus. When you
consider supplying new furniture to
a whole building like Sardinia
House, which has nine floors, and
around 30 desks per floor - that’s
270 desks, 270 chairs and 270
pedestals for one LSE building! So
reusing furniture reduces our carbon
footprint by a huge amount.
My favourite link with
sustainability is the De-clutter
Days! This is when a couple of weeks
before a department are due to move
they dedicate a day, lunch hour or
whatever they can, to clearing out
their offices of items they don’t
want. These items are recycled and
‘reloved’ within the LSE campus.
They can be books, bulky waste,
clothing, electrical waste, bric a
brac, stationery…. the list is
endless. It’s a really good way to
have a fresh start to their new
office environment – out with the
old and all that! The Sustainability
Team and I meet the departments,
explain how it all works, supply the
bags and crates, and pop along on
the day to help out.
What’s your favourite cuisine?
ITALIANO! My dad is Italian and
we have grown up around amazing food
and big Italian feasts most Sundays.
Sitting, eating, drinking,
chatting…. what a way to live! My
childhood was summers helping my
aunties pick olives and figs (and of
course tasting whilst picking!) and
“doing the tomatoes” which is when
we make the tomato sauces up for
pasta dishes. The food is organic
and homemade… and so is the VINO!
If you could live anywhere in
the world where would you go and
why?
I've
recently bought a house with my
fiancé, Ross, who also works at LSE
as a plumber so we're full on
with the DIY at the moment. I feel
like we could be the Swiss Family
Robinson (this seemed the most green
response I could give but how cool
would that be!) If the Swiss Family
didn’t work out, as long as we have
each other and our families close by
- what else do you need? Awww!
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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, please contact LSE Sustainability
Assistant Vyvyan Evans on v.evans@lse.ac.uk
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