King's Sustainability

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Guest Post: Franklin-Wilkins Library Sustainability Champions

August 2, 2016 /

[This week’s guest blog comes courtesy of Emily Russell, (Sustainability Champion for the Franklin-Wilkins Library). The views presented do not necessarily reflect those of King’s Sustainability]

[This is part of series of guest posts from Sustainability Champion teams, for more information about the scheme you can click here (Overview) and here (Summary of Awards evening).]

When I first heard about the sustainability workbook and audit my first thought was, ‘that sounds like a lot of work.’ The truth is we only had to make small changes to make our office more sustainable. To borrow a cliché, its small changes that can make a big difference. This June, I was proud to learn that those small changes earned the Franklin-Wilkins Library office a bronze in the annual sustainability awards.

As I ponder where to hang our lovely award, it’s also a great time to reflect on how we achieved it. While the sustainability workbook has its own headings, these are the three important messages I kept in mind when co-ordinating our workbook effort for bronze.

Educating

You cannot be sustainable all by yourself. Sustainability is a team effort, and you need the support of your colleagues. In order to educate my office about how they can be more sustainable, I use emails and posters. While completing the workbook this year we created a fun poster with a simple message about recycling. Using Star Wars characters (Yoda for recycle and Darth Maul for waste) we outlined to our colleagues about which bin they should use for specific waste. It helped to be specific about waste as not everyone is aware that you can’t recycle a crisp packet or that you can recycle a post-it note.

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Recycling

As well as creating fun posters to educate our colleagues, we started putting our scrap paper to good use. In the library we have lots of printers and we frequently find abandoned paper from when students or staff print incorrectly. Usually this paper would go in the bin, but we’ve started collecting non-confidential paper that is only printed on one side and made it available to students to use for note-taking. It’s proved popular with our students, and now we aren’t handing out fresh computer paper each time someone needs to take a few notes.

Powering off

While working on the sustainability workbook I found an infographic that said if you power down your PC at night you will save enough energy to heat six microwave dinners. That’s quite a bit of power, but again, this is an easy change you can put in to practice straightaway.

Completing our sustainability workbook was not a hard task to complete and I think it’s important that we role model sustainable behaviour to our students. The workbook has also motivated me to make sustainable changes in my personal life and again, I have started with small changes.

I’m looking forward to working on the silver workbook soon!

Bronze Award Winning Teams including the FWB team

Bronze Award Winning Teams including Jane Picciano and Samuel Clyma from Library Services

If you would like more information about the Sustainability Champions scheme or about general sustainability concerns at King’s you can contact the Sustainability Team. 

Celebrating at the Sustainability Champions Awards Evening (5th July 2016)

July 15, 2016 /

Tuesday 5th July saw the culmination of the Sustainability Champions scheme with the annual Sustainability Awards held at the Great Hall at Strand.

Over the last 12 months over 100 staff and students have been active Sustainability Champions with their actions affecting almost 2000 staff across the University. Taken together, the Champions have overseen the implementation of sustainable initiatives that have tangibly reduced the environmental impact of the University.

President and Principal, Professor Edward Byrne AC

President and Principal, Professor Edward Byrne AC discussing the importance of Sustainability

The evening opened with an opportunity for current and prospective Sustainability Champions from across the university to meet and share experiences.

After a short introduction from Kat Thorne, Head of Sustainability, the President and Principal, Professor Edward Byrne AC took the stage for a speech. The Principal emphasised the importance of University-wide sustainability, and thanked those who have made a difference improving practises in King’s. Jessica Naylor, from the NUS, followed this up by discussing the impact of the national Green Impact scheme for Sustainability Champions scheme across the country.

Kat Thorne, Head of Sustainability, introducing the awards

Kat Thorne, Head of Sustainability, introducing the awards

28 teams from across the University were then rewarded and thanked for their work over the past year and presented with their Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards with the winners listed below. .

The Silver winning Guy's Estates team

The Silver winning Guy’s Campus Operations and Hard Services Asset Management Team with Peter Frost admiring his Cactus

The Gold Winning Basic and Clinical Neuroscience Team

The Gold Winning Basic and Clinical Neuroscience Team

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The Bronze Winning Office Teams

The Bronze Winning Office Teams

The Bronze Winning Lab Teams

The Bronze Winning Lab Teams

It was great to see so many people from across the University community who have supported sustainability together in one place and to have the opportunity to thank them for their contributions.

There were many people who couldn’t attend the Awards ceremony but had been involved over the past year including many of our students who were involved as Auditors or supporting staff champions.

Karen Megranahan, a student who helped audit the Champions scheme, had this to say about the scheme:

‘It was a pleasure to be able to join Kings in celebrating those departments that have successfully participated in the green impact sustainability awards scheme. As an auditor it was wonderful to see so many people involved in the overall project really pulling together for the benefit of all. I hope that the successes to date will encourage more departments to participate in this valuable programme.’

We’d like to take this opportunity to once again say thank you to all the staff and students who have been involved over the past year and well done to all the Sustainability Champions for their achievements.

We look forward to working with everyone over the next year and presenting even more awards in a year’s time.

If you’re interested in participating in the Sustainability Champions scheme in the future please get in touch. There is more information available here, you can also sign up to our Champions mailing list. Next year’s scheme will be launch in October.

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All the winning teams, The Principal and Sustainability Staff

Charles Pegg, Sustainability Projects Assistant

Investing in Efficiency: Solar Panels at Great Dover Street Apartments

June 22, 2016 /

As we discussed last week, King’s is currently reviewing the methods and guidelines that exist for fundraising, research grants, procurement and investments. Aligning procedures with ethical values matters because it signals an active commitment to shifting our economy towards a low-carbon trajectory.

Building a more sustainable institution requires more than rewriting existing policy, however. At a practical level, our most significant environmental impact stems from keeping the lights on across our sites. With 27,600 registered students, 6,600 staff members, five London campuses and more than ten halls of residence, King’s is a prodigious consumer of energy. Reducing our carbon footprint through investments in energy efficiency and switching to alternative forms of energy therefore represents an area of significant potential impact.

King’s College London has committed to a reduction of 43% in carbon emissions by 2019/2020 against a 2005/06 baseline. This effort has been targeted at emissions arising from the use of oil, gas and electricity in daily operations. As outlined in the 2011 Carbon Management Plan, King’s low carbon vision is to reduce carbon emissions through the application of energy efficiency methods and the use of low carbon technologies.

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CO2 emissions 2008-2009: Energy use in buildings comprises the vast majority of the total footprint

Investing in smarter, greener and less energy-intensive systems is already bringing economic and environmental dividends. Since 2005/06, the implementation of the Carbon Management Plan has led to annual savings of approximately £3.6m. In 2014/2015 alone, investments in energy efficiency projects led to reductions in excess of 688tCO2e.

Yet, as the number of King’s students and staff continues to grow and as the university expands to new sites, there is a need to scale investments in carbon reduction projects to achieve the 43% reduction target by 2019/2020. Jon Wibberley, Karen Shaw and the wider Sustainability Team are continuously working towards identifying the most promising areas for investment in energy savings.

Over the past year, this effort has centred on upgrading heating and lighting in a number of King’s Residences. Undoubtedly, the most eye-catching of these carbon reduction projects has been the installation of solar panels on the roof of the Great Dover Street Apartments (GDSA). The panels were installed on Blocks 1-10 of GDSA in the spring semester of 2016 and are now fully operational.

With a net capacity of 84.97kW and an estimated annual electricity generation of 71,510 kWh, the panels are expected to result in annual onsite savings of £9,140. These savings are projected to increase by approximately £1000 p.a. going forward to 2025. At an installation cost of £119,635, this represents excellent value for money.

Solar panels on the roof of GDSA

Solar panels on the roof of GDSA

The solar panel installation at GDSA is not solely the product of long-sighted thinking by the King’s Energy team, however. Students were involved in initial conversations held between KCLSU and KCL to jointly fund the GDSA solar panels. In the end the UK government’s decision to reduce the feed-in tariffs from January 1st 2016 meant that there was not enough time to finalise the project. Nevertheless, Energy Management Coordinator Karen Shaw credits the broad student support for renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives as important in “building momentum for future projects”.

This support is evident through the actions taken in the student council. In 2014/2015 two key motions were adopted: one formulated an Ethical Investment Policy while the other encouraged KCLSU to explore alternative ethical banking providers. The outcome of this combined effort was that KCLSU moved a third of its reserves to an account with the ethical investment bank Triodos and replaced Natwest with MetroBank as its commercial banking provider.

Student involvement is not only important in helping carbon reduction projects get off the ground, but also in ensuring they are successful once they lift off. In addition to the solar panels, the spring semester saw several other upgrades at GDSA: personal fridges were replaced by larger communal fridges in the kitchens, LED lights and presence detectors were installed in kitchens and hallways and a more efficient heating system will be installed. These changes are part of a five year refurbishment project taking place at both Great Dover Street and Stamford Street.

A number of other major projects which have been completed successfully are worth mentioning: solar PV and Combined Heat & Power (CHP) is contributing to substantial energy savings at Champion Hill; Ground Source Cooling has been installed at the at the Wohl; Ground Source Heat Pumps are in operation at Cicely Saunders and both Cicely Saunders and Honour Oak Park use solar thermal energy to heat water.

Honour Oak Park

Honour Oak Park

Many more projects are in the pipeline over the next couple of years as part of a broader strategy to “design out” energy use from daily operations.

Yet, technological solutions can only go so far. Achieving real energy savings requires the participation of students. And here the good news is that lots of students are very conscious of the need to save energy. This past academic year, students in Stamford Street Apartments, Great Dover Street Apartments, Wolfson House and Champion Hill used 4.3% less energy compared to the 2014/15 academic year. Students play a role both in conserving energy and in identifying areas of energy wastage.

Going forward we hope to build on these achievements and lower our impact further. Students will remain central to this ambition being realised.

As always if you have comments, queries or suggestions do not hesitate to get in touch:

tobias.1.udsholt@kcl.ac.uk / sustainability@kcl.ac.uk

Follow us on twitter @KCLSustainable

Tobias Udsholt, Sustainability Projects Assistant

Bike Week at King’s

June 13, 2016 /

Header-banner-728x90pxThis week is Bike Week at King’s. Bike Week is a national campaign to raise awareness of the benefits of cycling under the headline ‘everyday cycling for everyone’.

Participate in Bike Week by biking to work or university every day this week!

The latest bike news at King’s is that more bicycle parking racks have been set up outside the Maughan Library.

We want to continue to make being cyclist at King’s easier and more convenient. We are using the occasion of Bike Week to collect suggestions for how we can improve facilities available to bike users at King’s. If you have 5 minutes to fill out our short survey we would very much appreciate your input: http://bit.ly/1syryzh.

Please spread the word to any fellow cyclists! The survey closes on Monday the 20th of June.

Other bike-related events taking place in London this week:

  • Dr. Bike will be in Green Park on the afternoon of Friday the 17th of June. Get your bike checked and registered free of charge.
  • Register your bike online now, here.
  • The Royal Parks are hosting events all week to promote considerate cycling. Find out more here.

You can always drop us an email with any suggestions or feedback on sustainability@kcl.ac.uk

Tobias Udsholt, Sustainability Projects Assistant

A Look Back at the SRIRC and Changes Taking Place at King’s

June 9, 2016 /

Hello everyone,

First things first, my name is Tobias Udsholt and I will be working with the Sustainability Team at King’s over the next few months.

As a student at King’s I have spent a lot of time engaged on issues relating to asustainability. Now that I have completed my degree, I am very excited to spend the summer months putting words into action. I will only be with the team for a short period of time before I begin an MSc in Environmental Economics at LSE in September, but I hope to get a lot done. You can get in touch with me directly on tobias.1.udsholt@kcl.ac.uk.

One area of particular interest to me is the debate over the role and responsibilities of universities in relation to the array of societal challenges we collectively face. As I see it, universities stand uniquely placed to nurture an understanding of the importance of sustainability amongst its students while playing a positive and active role in the wider social debate.

Grass root campaigns calling for divestment from fossil fuel companies have sparked intense debate on university campuses over the past few years. How far should universities go in taking a stance on issues such as climate change? Can engagement with companies whose business-models centre on the extraction of fossil fuels help shift us towards a more sustainable trajectory? And how should strategical objectives be balanced with ethical dilemmas?

King’s responded to the Fossil Free KCL campaign in November 2015, by setting up the Socially Responsible Investment Review Committee (SRIRC) and tasking it with a wide-ranging review of practices. On the same occasion Professor Ed Byrne, the Principal of King’s, released a statement reiterating “the commitment of King’s College London to doing more to bring about a low carbon and just world.”

The review conducted at King’s is distinct from the approach taken by many other universities in the UK. Rather than focusing solely on the framework for making investment decisions, the scope of the SRIRC extends to in-house energy management, research grants and contracts, fundraising, procurement and of course investments. By formulating a new university-wide strategy for incorporating ethical considerations into daily-operations, sustainability is put on the agenda across the board. This presents a good opportunity for the Sustainability Team to feed in ideas for new sustainable procedures in a variety of areas. If you want to participate in this process you can either send your recommendations directly to ian.creagh@kcl.ac.uk or via us at sustainability@kcl.ac.uk.

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On Wednesday, the SRIRC held its second Open Forum to discuss the draft recommendations issued by the committee. I invite you all to browse through the discussion points but among the highlights are the following:

  • King’s plans to identify high quality managers that specialise in investments in solutions to climate change and other environmentally friendly issues.
  • King’s is currently working to create more incentives for academics to disclose consulting engagements.
  • There is spectrum for closer supervision of the supply-chains of contractors employed by King’s.
  • Policy is in place to reject prospective funding from organisations that are deemed harmful.

The discussion paper also revealed that King’s has been an important player in the establishment of a new tobacco-free fund at BlackRock Investments. This illustrates that there are a number of options available to secondary investors that do not directly control the destination of their investment.

The Open Forum itself was lively and well-attended. The panel-speakers included two student representatives, Dr. Tytus Murphy and Nadine Almanasfi, the Student Union President, as well as Ian Creagh, Head of Administration and College Secretary, Chris Mottershead, Vice-Principal (Research & Innovation) and Professor Sridhar Venkatapuram. In the ensuing question-and-answer session students probed the criteria set out to identify opportunities for positive investment and how the governance structure of the committee will be formalised going forward.

The SRIRC will make their final recommendations to the Principal by October.

Next week is Bike Week at King’s so expect a foray of information on cycling facilities, safety and initiatives at King’s.

Until next time!

Tobias Udsholt, Sustainability Projects Assistant

GSTT Dental Link Nurse Team win Sustainability Award

June 7, 2016 /

nhsawardThe already prestigious Guy’s and St Thomas’ Dental Institute has one more reason to be seen as world leading! As well as training 20% of all dentists in England, the Dental Link Nurse team is now saving £40,000 annually in material waste costs. This great example of sustainable practise has won them an NHS Sustainability Award.

Savings

The Nurse team found plenty of ways to reduce expenditure and waste so that more of the budget could be used to enhance care and training. By switching from exam kits to the just required mirrors for consultant clinics they saved around £500 a week on procurement and over £70 on waste.

Other changes such as transitioning from disposable to reusable gallipots, labelling bins and an atmosphere more excited in sustainability lead to an equivalent of 56 tonnes less carbon emissions from waste incineration as well as saving £42,000 over the past year which has been fed back into the department.

 Future Plans

The Dental Link Nurse team hopes to expand their savings to other clinical teams. By stressing the savings and communicating their successes to the rest of the Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Foundation NHS trust departments hopefully this great success will be replicated.

Charles Pegg, Sustainability Projects Assistant

Socially Responsible Investment Review Committee Forum

June 6, 2016 /

Hi All

Jusocialst a quick reminder that we have the next Socially Responsible Investment Review Committee Forum tomorrow evening from 5pm to 7pm. It will be at S-2.08 at the Strand campus and will be an opportunity to hear what is happening in the world of King’s investment policy which involves ethical and sustainability issues such as fossil fuel companies. This is also a chance to have your voice heard on the topic.

More details can be found here.

Have a good week!

KCL Student Switch Off Celebratory Event

May 20, 2016 /

This Thursday (May 19th) saw a massive ice cream give away at Great Dover Street Apartments as a reward for the great success of GDSA students work for Student Switch Off.

A wave of exam drained students lining up

A wave of students who just finished an exam

What is Student Switch Off?

Student Switch Off is a NUS led initiative aiming to bring collective energy saving action to university accommodation across the country. This could be through simple actions like switching off lights to longer, larger campaigns. So far this year SSO has reached 139,000 students over 44 universities leading to an average of 5.5% reductions in energy use (keeping roughly 1,188 tonnes of CO2 out of the atmosphere).

 

A lot of Ice Cream

One third of the freezers full of Ice Cream

How did King’s Accommodation do?

Over the past year KCL Halls of residence (specifically Stamford Street Apartments, Great Dover Street Apartments, Wolfson House and Champion Hill) used 4.3% less energy compared to the 2014/15 academic year. That’s the equivalent of 76 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide being kept out of the atmosphere.

 

 

 

students  students2

Did you say Ice Cream Giveaway?

Why yes. As Great Dover Street saw the greatest reduction in electricity use amongst the halls they were treated to roughly 400 tubs to free Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream (as well as some vegan options and sorbets). With help from the RLAs (Resident Life Assistants), Neil Jennings, who set up the Switch Off programme, was able to pass on all that ice cream to GDSA students, a brief but welcome respite in the middle of exam season.

students3   students4

To keep up with the KCL Switch Off campaign you can check the facebook page. 

For more information about Student Switch Off in general click here.

Charles Pegg, Sustainability Projects Assistant

KCL Sustainability Veolia Trip

May 10, 2016 /
Group photo

Jessie Hardcastle, Jo Cassidy, Charles Pegg, Harry Warner, Beth Fuller, Richard Burgess

This Monday a group of King’s College Staff visited Veolia, our waste contractor who services all of Southwark. We got to see the processes our recyclables and general waste all go through (about 20,000KG each week) as well as all the sustainability work Veolia does.

Landfill Waste

If all the recyclables and general waste Veolia received went to landfill that would be the equivalent to 15,000 tonnes of CO2 each year but one of their main accomplishments is their lack of landfill waste. All general waste they receive are transferred to the SELCHPs (South-East London Combined Heat and Power) incinerator and produce heat and power (saving up to 8,000 tonnes of CO2 each year). Similarly other waste this yields has been used to produce steel and limestone to fill mine shafts.

Biodiversity Projects

To support local biodiversity Veolia has several schemes for wildlife. Birds, bats and beetles are all accommodated for with roosting boxes while on the flora end over 100 trees and 10,000 shrubs have been planted. Serum mats also provide an artificial, green roof habitat over the building’s rooftop.

Building Sustainability

The Southwark Integrated Waste Management Facility was built with sustainability in mind. 25% of the materials in its construction came were from recycled sources and its rooftop solar panels provide 20% of the buildings energy requirements. Meanwhile grey water is used for car washing and toilets in the resource centre while smart taps limit any fresh water use.

Education

The Veolia plant also does plenty to educate local members of community. They hold regular site tours to those interested but they put notable effort in appealing to primary schools to engage with young children about the importance of recycling properly.

While we can always improve our waste management systems (only a third of what Veolia receives is put in recycling bins) it is good to see our partners at Veolia attempting to improve the sustainability on their end.

 

 

Charles Pegg, Sustainability Projects Assistant
veolialogo

KCL Sustainability: Green Labs

April 13, 2016 /

While King’s has been greatly investing in its broad sustainability agenda, there has also been a drive to innovate in our laboratories. Despite covering just over 10% of our floor space, our labs are spread across all 4 campuses and use a disproportionately large amount of energy and water, as well as produce dangerous chemical waste.

To address this untapped area, Kings has invested in over the past 18 months in a post to lead in this area as well as invested in the projects highlighted. Here are just some of the scheme’s we’ve recently implemented to improve the efficiency of King’s labs.

 Savawatt Installations

This £38,000 installation project saw 584 Savawatt controls being installed into our research fridges and freezers which saves about £15,000 each year (and roughly 68 tonnes of CO2) meaning it pays back its cost in about 2.5 years.

Green Impact: Lab Sustainability Champions

Just like in our King’s offices, our lab staff take part in an awards programme which helps reduce energy, water and general waste across the labs. They also get audited for their work at the end of greeni_logoeach year for an award promoting an environment of commitment to sustainability.

This year 20 teams are participating which is the most laboratory teams for any university in the UK.

Drying Cabinet Exchange

33 old uninsulated drying cabinets were consolidated and replaced by 28 insulated efficient models, paying back our investment in 4 years and achieving £15,000 of annual savings.

blogfumecup Fume Cupboard Management Policy

Already applied to new fume cupboard installations, this technical policy will take over a year to implement but will result in hundreds of thousands of pounds saved!

Cold Storage Policy

Our laboratories are subject to a ‘Cold Storage Policy’ which is used at other universities such as Oxford amongst others. This promotes efficient, safe and sustainable practise for using the research laboratory fridges and freezers.

Current/Future Endeavours

  • Continued installation and refurbishment of fume cupboards and ventilations systems
  • Introduction of Warp-it system for redistributing unwanted resources warpitamong other institutions such as UCL who have been very successful with the system
  • Joint UCL/KCL procurement mini-tenders

 More to come!

Look to our case studies on our labs page for summaries of all the above projects and plenty more to come, including a variety of small projects lead by local lab staff (timer installations, equipment exchanges, UPS installation, freezer warm-ups, waterless condensers and more).

If interested in our growing collection of case studies see here:

You can also contact our Research Efficiency Officer Martin Farley (martin.farley@kcl.ac.uk)

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