UK Climate Change Programme 2006 - JNCC - Defra

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Public sector
48. The Higher Education Funding Council for
England 17 (HEFCE) provides grants to institutions
through their Leadership, Governance and
Management Fund to support the development
and promotion of good practice. In July 2005
HEFCE published a strategy and action plan 18 ,
setting out how, within the next ten years, the
Higher education sector in England will achieve
sustainability and tackle climate change. This will be
a key cross-cutting theme of HEFCE’s strategic plan
for 2006-11, which will be published in April 2006.
46. To aid this process, the Government is
developing a strategy on renewable energy
generation and carbon reduction for schools.
This will include a whole life costs toolkit to help
decision makers prioritise expenditure on energy
efficiency measures and low and zero carbon
energy systems. The Government will work
with the private sector and NDPBs to
develop an approach to support schools in
developing, as part of the primary capital
programme, renewable energy generation to
make the process easy, low (or zero) cost,
and genuinely attractive to schools. This
approach will promote excellent sustainable
design, offer high efficiency potential, develop
best practice partnering with the private sector
and set out how to develop the skill necessary in
schools, local authorities and the private sector.
Higher and further education
47. Higher education institutions have a significant
impact on the environment. Each year they are
responsible for consuming 5.2 billion kWh of
energy at a cost of over £200m and spend £3bn
on goods and services. They educate two million
students and employ almost 300,000 staff, and
have an opportunity to support a sustainable
society by equipping students with the values,
skills and knowledge to contribute to sustainable
development. They also have the opportunity to
generate and transfer knowledge through
research and leadership of, and influence on,
local, national and international networks.
49. The Carbon Trust has developed a version of
Carbon Management tailored to the needs of
the Higher education sector. This provides technical
and change management support to help the
sector realise carbon emissions savings from areas
such as academic, accommodation and leisure
buildings and vehicle fleets. This is supported by
a Higher Education Carbon Management Toolkit
which provides process guidance, technical
advice, case studies and a suite of specifically
tailored tools. The pilot programme was launched
in April 2005 to 20 universities and runs until
March 2006. The second phase is due to
commence in May 2006 and will extend support
to a further 25 universities.
The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) estate
is approximately 7.13 million square metres
(excluding agricultural buildings and
residences) and is responsible for consuming
approximately 1.7 billion kWh of energy at a
cost of over £43m per year.
The Government expects providers, working
with the Learning Skills Council, to
demonstrate good governance in sustainable
buildings and estate management which will
see them undertake a review of the social,
economic and environmental aspects of their
organisations and identify areas for action.
relating to energy, building and design,
procurement and travel through for example,
encouraging the use of video and telephone
conferencing across the LSC to reduce business
travel and ‘recycling’ redundant IT equipment
for schools and charities.
17 www.hefce.ac.uk/
18 This is available at: www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2005/05_28/.