To improving the country’s environment
address the most significant our use of energy.
GCU made a commitment to reduce its carbon footprint (relative to the 2008 baseline year) by 20 per cent by 2014 and our CMP identified a number of opportunities for achieving this target. As we set about implementing them, we noticed we were beginning to discuss the carbon implications of future projects. We realised we could change how we use and sourced energy and invested £4.9 million in developing a combined heat and power (CHP) system and district heating supply to supply all our heating and 30 per cent of our electricity needs.
In planning the CHP, we ensured it would also support our teaching programmes and have potential to link into Sustainable Glasgow’s planned district heating network (which was part of the city’s aspiration to reduce its own carbon emissions by 30 per cent in ten years). A review of our carbon emissions confirmed that not only had we reached our carbon target for 2014, but, thanks to our CHP, our carbon emissions were down by 30 per cent.
Whilst we’re delighted with this achievement, we’re mindful that we have scope to do more, in both emissions from sources we control, such as energy consumption, and sources we can only influence, like student and staff commuting. We are updating our CMP to map how we’ll deliver further reductions in emissions associated with how we use energy and, for commuting, we’re looking at how we can build on our experience piloting Cycling Scotland’s Cycle Friendly Campus Award (we were one of five Scottish institutions selected to take part), which has already delivered a 10-15 per cent increase in the number of students cycling to the university.
Our focus is not only on reducing impacts but also enhancing benefits: we work with a number of community groups and neighbours to reuse furniture and other surplus items and are establishing a number of wildlife refuges across our campus. We are also working with Netpositive to quantify the environmental, social and economic benefits that our campus redevelopment project will have at local, regional and national levels.