Enhancing the Campus through Student Project Work

Tuesday 14th September, 2004 - Burwalls Conference Centre, Clifton, University of Bristol

A Collaborative Event between the Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Engineering and Built Environment Subject Centres and Higher Education Environmental Performance Improvement (HEEPI) Project

Summary of the Day

The event on the 14th September, organised by HEEPI, with support from LTSN-GEES and LTSN-Engineering, was well attended by a 50/50 mix of academics and University Estates officers. The great venue of Burwalls Conference Centre in Bristol - not least the lunchtime feast - was conducive to the conference 'buzz' of people exchanging stories and experiences.

The morning plenary session consisted of three presentations - from an academic, an estates manager, and a student campaigner. It is clear that participation from all three groups of people at Universities is needed for successful change towards 'greener campuses':

Peter Hopkinson introduced the work of HEEPI, which is based on the premise that 'if you can measure it you can manage it'. HEEPI has been invited to bid for further funding from February 2005, to continue their work. This event was their first in 'dipping a toe' into the teaching and learning side of managing the environmental impact of university campuses. The aim of HEEPI is to identify what help and guidance would be most useful, give examples of good practice, and provide ways for rushed academics and students to work together constructively on these issues. In his own work with students over the years at Bradford, it had taken seven years of gathering evidence and putting the business case to convince the management of the need for a full time environmental manager.

Brian Chalkley introduced the work of LTSN-GEES. Over the years of supervising more than three hundred student projects, only two or three of these had been on the Plymouth campus - more exotic locations were a far more usual topic. Yet it was a subject that he felt had been overlooked, perhaps due to the global perspective of geographers. It is not clear how much has been achieved since the Toyne Report in the 1990s, but the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) are currently working on a strategy for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), and this will require estates managers to give a higher profile to sustainability issues. The outcome will be that more students will be doing work around sustainability.

Martin Haigh in his presentation referred to Biggs' concept of 'constructive alignment', or 'joined-up thinking'- this is needed between curricula and estates (view PowerPoint presentation by Martin Haigh). We teach according to the scientific ethic of objectivity and yet education for sustainability is something that needs to be taken personally. Kofi Annan's 'Dakkar' speech highlighted the importance of turning ideas into reality. The first step in practical work is to tidy up our own backyards.
Oxford Brookes Environmental Forum has a combined staff and student membership of around 200, and has managed to achieve the status of fair-trade for the University - in other words, their project has had a real and big impact. [Yet a survey shows that environmental students are more environmentally aware at the beginning of their courses than at the end.]

On the Gaia module that Haigh teaches, each student plants trees - the Council pays for the trees. The exercise is undertaken within the concepts of deep ecology, which should be the goal of all environmental education: we are each a member of the ecosystem, and what we do does matter. The intellectual value of the project is that it promotes reflective practice. In a survey of 165 students at Oxford Brookes University, the second most agreed statement was: most environmental problems can be solved by changes in lifestyle. The statement least identified with was that "it is alright to sacrifice the environment for the sake of human society".

Lucy Pearce from People and Planet outlined how the organisation, which started as Third World First (the originators of the Internationalist magazine, later the New Internationalist), occupied a unique space between development (Oxfam etc) and environment (Greenpeace etc). Their current campaigns are on climate change, fair-trade and HIV/AIDS. The priorities are set by a meeting once a year with their student networks to decide where to put their energy and resources - and so the organisation is 'owned' by the students. This is important as they are looking to achieve both impact and empowerment.

When they started their climate change campaign, only three universities were sourcing any green electricity. Now, ten years on, over 60 universities are buying green electricity, and the biggest switches have happened where there have been active People and Planet campaigns. They are making the links between a huge global issue and individual action. Interestingly though, their 'footprints' work was not so successful - implying that it is easier for individuals to campaign to get others to change their actions, rather than making changes in their own personal lifestyles.

Another campaign is on exposing university/corporate links. They aim to get literature on ethical careers and critiques of large corporations into careers offices at universities.

In order for universities to 'go green', four things need to be in place:

1. Support from Senior Managers
2. A Review
3. Policy
4. Full time Environmental Manager

Students can open up the political space for environmental managers and academics to work within without sticking their own heads above the parapets. Even so, a recent survey in Green Futures Magazine showed that 16-25 year olds are the least interested in environmental issues.

Recycling projects may not be the most important issue, but they have visible results, and this makes students feel that they can do something. Personally, Pearce would like to see campaigns for a carbon neutral campus.

Albert Young from Glasgow University gave an outline of the European Union Carbon Trading Scheme which will apply to all universities that have boilers over 20MW in size, and mean that they have to meet certain carbon emission limits (view PowerPoint presentation by Albert Young). At Glasgow University, 50% of electricity used is 'green', at no extra premium. This has been achieved by a good relationship, and 'gentle persuasion', with their electricity supplier, Scottish Power - the company has also paid £310 for design and print of 3,000 bookmarks advertising the University's energy conservation campaign for freshers week.

Glasgow University's energy efficiency campaign began in the 90s with posters, evolving into a campaign day and then a campaign week. The greatest savings have come from scientific research departments. To help get the message across he uses the illustration that 1 tonne of CO₂ takes up the space of a 10 metre diameter balloon. He had gone to the Marketing and Psychology Department for help in how to get the message across and many different posters had been produced. There is always something practical for student work to address related to energy and the environment.

They have appointed monitors to parade buildings to check that everything is turned off. They were lucky to have Richard Wilson (of "One Foot in the Grave" Fame) as Rector, who produced an energy saving video which is shown to all new staff and students. This describes how the lighting bill alone at Glasgow University is £3,000 a day.

There are many different grants available for energy efficiency, e.g. for Combined Heat And Power. Glasgow University have obtained one of £50k for heat pump technology, and another grant for a daylight light dimming system.

During discussion one participant reported that only 8-9% of the electricity at Leeds University is 'green', and their supplier says that this is all that is available.

The plenary in the afternoon, led by Brian Chalkley aimed to discover how the work heard of at the meeting could be taken forward. The following was identified:

Opportunities:

• Establish dialogue between academics and Higher Education Institution officers to embed mechanisms to take these ideas forward.
• Report to vice-chancellors. Write into Learning & Teaching strategies
• Highlight employability benefits
• Forthcoming United Nations decade of ESD
• Feeds into student participation agenda

Obstacles

• Lack of commitment from vice-chancellors
• Seen as small beer; no targets/requirements
• Need to move beyond GEES disciplines
• Estates need academic support
• No incentives for academics
• Declining interest in GEES
• Capital/refurbishment funding structures

Further action by HEEPI / GEES Subject Centre / Centre for Built Environment / LTSN-Engineering

• More workshops
• Summarised guidelines
• Student project ideas on websites

Wendy Miller 17th September 2004