This year, as part of Green Week, the Sustainability team distributed a survey to gauge student/staff opinions on sustainability at King’s and the changes they want to see around the campuses!

Ninety-six student and staff members took our survey during Green Week for the chance to win one of the Ohyo Water bottles.

One of the Green Week survey winners, Natasha, with her Ohyo water bottle prize!

From this, it is clear that energy, waste management and food are the areas that King’s students and staff want to see improvements in across the campuses; helping us to ensure that we are making changes in the right areas.

Alongside a more thorough understanding of the changes that want to be seen, some great ideas for sustainable projects have come out of the survey, from incentive schemes for cyclists to composting food waste across campuses.

These ideas, alongside ideas suggested at Green Week events, will now feed into our following survey to understand which of the projects is the most popular amongst the King’s community to be taken through for implementation across King’s.

Want to have your say in shaping the future of sustainability at King’s? Take our survey here to vote for your favourite idea!

Sustainability Challenge on the Monday of Green Week!

Rhianne Menzies, Sustainability Projects Assistant

We spend 90% of our lives in buildings. Little wonder then, that the types of buildings we occupy and the conditions maintained within them, have a significant impact on our health, well-being and productivity. King’s has joined a new project backed by technology champion, Innovate UK, which aims to identify the best indoor conditions for human productivity and to deliver them at lowest energy consumption. The project will run for the next 2 years, commencing February 2016 and will be led by the King’s Directorate of Estates & Facilities.

The World Green Building Council reports that productivity improvements of 8 – 10% can be achieved through better air quality(1). In many cases, energy efficient buildings are also those that enhance productivity, often as a by-product of daylighting and natural ventilation. Recent findings suggest that green building conditions can improve cognitive functioning by 61%(2). However, achieving a low carbon, productive building is complex, and as well as natural synergies, there are also tensions in trying to attain both these goals, particularly in existing buildings.

Mark Adams, King’s Head of Asset and Infrastructure management comments, “The link between Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) and productivity is proven. Our challenge is to achieve this at least carbon cost. This project aims to test the relationship in the real world, quantify the gain and develop systems to consistently deliver the right IEQ at lowest energy”.

This Whole Life Performance + project brings together a consortium of experts in building performance, property development and facilities management. Oxford Brookes University will provide technical input to develop the service offering and solutions will be tested in office buildings owned and occupied by King’s College London.

“We believe our responsibility as a leading University, extends beyond simply providing buildings for people to occupy. To deliver a truly successful building, it must enhance the work and lives of those that spend time there. We’re delighted to be part of this ground breaking project and excited about the benefits it can deliver for our students and staff.” Nick O’Donnell Director of Real Estate Management at King’s.

Throughout the project, findings will be disseminated by the British Council for Offices and Constructing Excellence. Building performance consultancy, LCMB will lead the project team, with the ultimate aim of commercialising and bringing to market new services to deliver more productive, lower carbon buildings.

Managing Director of LCMB John O’Brien is excited about this new initiative “This project has the potential to create something quite momentous; happier, healthier, more productive places to work. We’re delighted to lead the furtherment of knowledge in this area with the support of Innovate UK and partners like Kings College London.”

Notes
(1) Health, Wellbeing and Productivity in Offices, World Green Building Council, Sept 2014
(2) Associations of Cognitive Function Scores with Carbon Dioxide, Ventilation, and Volatile Organic Compound Exposures in Office Workers: A Controlled Exposure Study of Green and Conventional Office Environments, Joseph G. Allen, Piers MacNaughton, Usha Satish, Suresh Santanam, Jose Vallarino, and John D. Spengler, Oct 2015

Rhianne Menzies, Sustainability Projects Assistant

The holiday season can often be fairly wasteful – with Christmas cards, wrapping paper, boxes and leftover food adding to higher amounts of waste going to landfill.

However, the Sustainability team are on hand to offer some advice on how to reduce your environmental impact this Christmas break!

1. Use recycled paper.

The UK uses enough wrapping paper to wrap Big Ben 260,000 times and the London Eye 50,000 times over the holiday season! To reduce this waste – avoid using shiny or glitter covered wrapping paper where possible, so that it can be recycled after use.

Source: recyclenow.com

2. Freeze your leftovers

We throw away 7 million tonnes of food every year and with Christmas a prevalent time for overspending and overeating, a huge amount of food can go to waste. Make the most of your leftovers and freeze them to eat at a later date. Follow an advent calendar of waste tips here.
(Remember- vegetable and other food peelings can be used as compost also!)

3. Going away for Christmas?

Switch off everything and uplug it from the socket! This can save you energy, money and have environmental benefits.

4. Keep your thermostat low.

Rather than putting your heating on high during the colder winter months, lower your temperature gauge and use it as an excuse to wear a Christmas jumper instead. The Guy’s Campus Operations team turned off the heating in their office last week, wearing Christmas jumpers for charity and raising a great £55.50 for Macmillan Cancer Support!

5. Recycle your Christmas tree!

After the Christmas period, many Christmas trees will end up in landfill. However, many Local Authorities and garden centres will set up tree collections in January, where trees are shredded into tree clippings and used in woodland parks and other areas. Go to your local boroughs page for more information about how you can recycle your tree.

(Note – Although artificial trees are more environmentally beneficial due to their longer life span, they cannot be recycled as they are made of many various plastic parts).

Rhianne Menzies, Sustainability Projects Assistant

King’s College London hosted a round table event for Energy Managers and Heads of Sustainability from some of the leading research Universities in the UK, on Wed 18th November. The key topic for debate was the challenge of reducing carbon in a setting which is constantly changing in the drive to deliver cutting edge research.

Guests from UCL, Warwick, Bristol, Oxford, Cardiff, Reading and LSE came together to showcase successful projects, share knowledge and problem solve. Key themes for the day included the major contribution that sustainable labs can make to reducing energy consumption, the importance of developing metrics that set carbon targets in a meaningful context (especially in estates where student numbers and industry investment are growing) and opportunities to generate, store and trade energy on site.

Tom Yearley, Energy Manager, King’s College London: “We’re aiming to reduce carbon by a further 38% at King’s and meeting with colleagues with a similar challenge has given us great ideas to explore. Our work in sustainable labs is central to us achieving our energy reduction goals and we’re considering new projects in power generation from photovoltaics (PV) on site. What I take away from the event is the continued efforts across the sector to achieve our carbon reduction objectives.”

Lisa Ward, Carbon Reduction Manager, London School of Economics and Political Science: “At LSE we have set ourselves ambitious environmental targets when creating new buildings alongside improving our existing estate. We are currently redeveloping our Centre Buildings whilst also implementing energy conservation measures largely through RE:FIT. This event provided a chance to discuss new ideas with others in the same position.”

King’s Sustainability collaborated with King’s Think Tank to lead a panel discussion into a future of changing energy supplies within Europe, and how European energy demands can be met without the use of environmentally harmful fossil fuels.

To help us answer this, four guest speakers were invited to present their views on the topic. This included:

• Malcolm Keay from the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies.
(Malcolm has worked in both the public, private and non-profit sector. He has also been special advisor to the House of Lords Committee Inquiry into Energy Security in Europe and Director of the Energy and Climate Change Study for the World Energy Council).
• Jonathan Church is an Environmental Lawyer at ClientEarth.
(Jonathan specialises in climate and energy legislation, with a particular focus on the UK Climate Change Act. Prior to this Jonathan worked in research and campaigning roles for an EU-related NGO).
• Catherine Early is Deputy Editor of the Environmentalist.
(Catherine has specialised in energy and environmental journalism since 2003, where she has written for Environment Business, Real Power and the Guardian).
• Danielle Paffard is a Divestment Campaigner at 350.org.
(Danielle has helped start up highly influential campaigns such as UK Uncut, Move Your Money and No Dash for Gas, in a bid against fossil fuel sponsorship).

Each of the four speakers brought their own contrasting view to the topics, giving their own views on the topic before opening the floor to audience questions. Jonathan focused on the use of legislation as a tool for energy security, and Malcolm into possible energy policies looking to the future. Catherine presented an array of media perceptions on energy supplies, blaming the media for often contorting perceptions of an energy ‘crisis’ when this is not always the case. Danielle, unsurprisingly, used the debate to highlight the necessity to divest from non-renewable sources of energy generation and encouraged students to join the King’s Fossil Free movement. The myriad of opinions from the four speakers offers an important reminder of the complexity and diversity of energy security issues within Europe.

We are currently looking to hold similar events in Green Week next February (8th – 12th). If you, or your societies have any thoughts on events like these (or completely different), please do get in touch at sustainability@kcl.ac.uk and we would be more than happy to try and help facilitate your ideas.

Rhianne Menzies, Sustainability Projects Assistant