Cheltenham Ladies' College: Living its sustainability principles

Educators have a powerful role in communicating and engaging with the sustainability agenda through present and future generations of influencers and decision-makers.

According to Nigel Richards, Chief Operating Officer at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, the institution lives its sustainability principles via a continuous process of improvement that involves pupils, parents, staff, and the wider community. The independent school seeks to do everything to the highest standard, and that includes sustainability.

Nigel: “The definition of sustainability is the ability to exist and develop without depleting natural resources or doing harm. It’s something we do now as a matter of course and the only reason we do it is because it’s the right thing to do.”

Over the last few years Cheltenham Ladies’ College has explored what it can do to be sustainable, not just with its own workforce, but in conjunction with its stakeholders, including its supply chain, local education community, and most relevant of all, its pupils.

“One of the main differences between the education sector and others is that there is nothing like pupils holding teachers to account!” explains Nigel. “We soon know if we are not doing enough or are not doing it properly. Children want to have a voice. The pupils lead on this and it’s incredibly empowering for them.”

The School has a sustainability committee made up of UK based and international girls aged 11 to 18 who are boarders and day pupils. The committee meets regularly and comes up with ideas and suggestions and the school feeds back its responses, actions and successes to the committee.

An example of pupils leading on sustainability initiatives include Meat Free Mondays, as a tangible way of reducing meat consumption, with an ambition to improve the environment and lower carbon emissions. Looking more closely at food consumption at College led to an initiative that reduced food waste. Each boarding house has its own kitchen, so the College worked with its suppliers, aligning with the supply chain and meeting a target of zero waste to landfill. This was supported with a Buy Local procurement strategy to reduce food miles, the carbon footprint of suppliers, and to encourage local businesses. The College is even replacing gas hobs in the kitchens at the end of their lives with energy efficient electric hobs, ready for a future with no gas on site.

“To be honest, to make progress, some of what we are doing will take cost out of the organisation,” admits Nigel. “It makes sense on many levels. There’s double benefit to be had from our sustainability strategies.”

Carbon net zero

Although sustainability in all its guises is considered at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, (from its supply chain to plastic use, and investments), the largest project Nigel oversees is carbon reduction. To try and achieve its “big vision” of carbon net zero by 2030, the College has a planned reduction of scope emissions.

“There are big decisions like the companies we work with and where our funds are invested, but it’s the little actions that everyone takes that will help get us there,” comments Nigel. “Simple things like turning off lights and making sure computers and TVs aren’t on standby. Even small actions can make a difference.”

Cheltenham Ladies’ College went through a formal measuring exercise. It identified its carbon footprint, creating a baseline, and where improvements could be made, creating goals. The College confirmed that the biggest footprint from Scope One emissions was from the gas consumed on site and the fuel used in their vehicles. To make substantial changes to Scope One emissions, they decided to take immediate decisive action.

This action started with a programme to improve the College’s buildings: a difficult start as they span centuries in age, from the mid-1800s to 21^st Century, and have a broad range of uses. Some are listed too. Retrofitting, with measures to improve heat loss, including insulation and secondary glazing, has not been easy. For example, they have installed building management systems to enable temperature control in each building and have changed gas metering to half hourly rather than hourly for improved reporting accuracy.

All refurbishment projects include retrofitting for increased thermal efficiency. For example, when replacing the roof of a 1970s building recently they found very little insulation, which they have now brought up to maximum modern recommendations when fitting a new roof. The plan is for old gas boilers to be replaced by air source heat pumps, where possible. Overall, the College will transition from gas to electricity on site, whilst also starting to generate their own electricity using photovoltaic cells.

To improve carbon loss through fuel consumption, the College has an eight-year plan to replace all diesel vehicles with electric ones and to provide electric charging points in car parks for staff and visitors. That’s achievable within their 2030 target.

Regarding Scope Two emissions, the College has introduced a project to reduce and change electricity consumption. LED lighting systems are being rolled out across all buildings, and as Nigel explains: “the cost benefits of that payback period are impressive. It’s a very easy business case.”

Scope Three emissions are harder to tackle by Nigel’s admission, but the College is making progress. It’s important that the goods they buy reflect their carbon net zero ambitions and they choose suppliers that have sustainability as a key part of their business (like Zurich Municipal).

For example, the College has used a carpet company for years that is carbon neutral. They manufacture carpets in this country in a sustainable way, using recycled materials and their own generated clean energy. Also, all the school uniform is carbon neutral and the photocopier supplier they use offsets the carbon from paper manufacturing with certified tree planting. They even use washable china mugs instead of disposable cups.

Sustainability culture

Nigel: “We have to make conscious purchasing decisions and factor in sustainability across our supply chains. Over time sustainability will become more important than price.”

It is hoped that a sustainability culture will become embedded in the College as business as usual. According to Nigel this attitude comes from the top, with the strong leadership of the Principal, Eve Jardine-Young, who drives the vision for sustainability. However, it is the pupils themselves that promulgate this approach, and hold the adults to account. “It’s important that we answer their questions and help them to better understand the part they can play, whilst being aware of the scale of the challenge,” says Nigel.

Cheltenham Ladies’ College is doing its best to make progress on sustainability, but they don’t have all the answers. "Our approach is to tap into the real expertise," states Nigel. "We don’t want to reinvent the wheel otherwise we’ll make the same mistakes people have made before. There’s a real community interest in sustainability and when we acknowledge we are all trying to solve the same problems and we can do it better together, that’s when it becomes powerful.”

Our latest Zurich Municipal whitepaper, The Sustainability Shift: Places, features Cheltenham Ladies' College's case study among others as well as tools and frameworks to help support you in making the sustainability shift. To find out more, download our whitepaper.

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