As a school, we’re committed to reducing our carbon footprint with the aim of becoming carbon neutral as soon as possible. There are three main areas for us to look at: energy consumption, heating and transport.
A key area that has seen huge improvement for us, is our electrical energy usage. When we first installed 876 solar panels in 2017, it was the largest array on any school in Europe. We have been adding to that, and last autumn term had a further 404 solar panels installed onto the roof of our sports halls. This means, we now have a total of 1,518 solar panels, and during the summer will be running 50% from the energy produced.
Since installation, our solar panels have reduced our carbon emissions by 283,586kg which is the equivalent of planting 17,157 trees.
During the winter months, we have been able to replace the old Lower Astro flood lights to more efficient LED flood lights, which again save on our electricity.
This month, we will start installing EV charging points in the car parks. This will allow staff, and visitors, to charge their vehicles while they’re at school, and will feed off the solar panels when possible. Increasing access to EV charging points may help people to make that swap from more polluting vehicles.
In addition, we are looking at the possibility of changing some of our fleet of minibuses to electric and will be carrying out trials with one next month.
We continue to encourage the use of refillable water bottles across school, ensure recycling of the usual materials and food waste from our dining rooms and looking at alternatives to international travel as much as possible.
Our Green Council will be continuing to develop our Community Garden in its second year, growing vegetables and crops and giving staff and students a space to relax and connect with nature.
“Sustainability matters to us and our students, and there is much we can do, now to change the way we work for better environmental outcomes. We need to lead with action, but we want our students to see how they can be part of that leadership; there is an obvious and impressive appetite among them, as well as among staff and governors, to ensure Trinity is part of the solution.”
Mr Kennedy, Headmaster
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