Bedales’ Green Policy

Key Assumptions

a) For educational, ethical and ‘brand’ reasons, it is essential that we show ourselves to be at the forefront of ‘Green Developments’ relative to other independent schools. There can be no choice as to whether we go down this route: the debate is about how and when.

b) Agreeing a Green Plan will take a minimum of nine months and will involve a level of complexity way beyond that of drawing up the draft Financial 10 Year Plan. The Green Plan will require substantial investment by the school over the next decade at least.

c) The schools’ aim should be to move towards carbon neutrality by a date to be agreed. Initially, this will need to be achieved through the use of some offsetting, but the intention will be to gradually lessen the reliance on offsetting.

Activity so far

• A Green Committee (comprising staff and students) began work in earnest over a year ago; this group has had two main aims – firstly, increasing awareness of the need for behaviour change amongst the school community; and secondly, the planning of the Greening Bedales day.
• The Greening Bedales day took place at the end of the first week of term (8th September 2007) and served a really important function in alerting the school community to the need for action and outlining various ways the school could develop.
• Subsequent discussions involving the Head, Bursar, Head of the Green Committee and a governor have clarified the need for the next stage to involve different levels of operation:
• Tactical level: the priority here is to engage the hearts and minds of staff and students, devising methods to encourage them to change their habits. Work here needs to be steered by the head and members of the Green Committee. This level should include work on the food side – in particular, steps to grow our own food and the framing of a policy on food sourcing (paying particular attention to food miles).
• Strategic Level: the main activity here is to draw up the Green Plan. The nature of the work will mean that it must be driven forward by a small group, led by the Bursar and the Head, probably with the help of a lead consultant.

Proposed Way Forward

• Tactical Level: this will need to operate along the lines outlined above and to look for new ways of involving the school community – for example, the Green question time on 5th November 2007.
• Strategic Level: agreement needs to be reached with governors on the Green Plan’s scope and how it should be drawn up.

Green Plan’s Scope:

• ‘Energy In’:

This will require feasibility studies on potential ways of generating energy – for example, a wind turbine. It will also be essential to cost a replacement programme for boilers and research alternative energy sources for these conventional ways of generating energy.

• ‘Energy out’

Buildings: we will need to identify our most wasteful buildings and cost the different kinds of retro-fitting, e.g. improved insulation for roofs and cavities.

• Activities review

We already have a carbon footprint for some of our activities – transport, packaging etc. We will need to extend this.

We will need to evaluate the benefit and costs of generating new/greener energy as against the costs of reducing the energy we use. The plan will outline the process.

Use of Consultants

• We are exploring the possibility of using the consultant who was part of the professional team for the Orchard Building to help us produce the Green Plan funding. We see potential in particular to help us to attract grants.
• It may be feasible to share an environmental officer with other schools.

Key Milestones

The following key milestones are proposed. The outcome would be that the Green Plan becomes part of the 2009/2010 budget.

March 08

Progress on Green Plan should be sufficient for us to agree the scope and seek go ahead for feasibility costings – which will need to be spent in budget year 08/09.

November 08

Plan agreed in principle by Board.

March 09

Priorities agreed as part of the annual updating of the 10 Year Plan; Green Plan costings are fed into the Plan. Further debate on what can be afforded and when. Green Plan therefore is fully fledged and major expenditure on a strategic level in action for budget year 09/10

KJB

15.10.07