The school’s green credentials – how do we stack up?

The aim of the school is to become carbon neutral as soon as possible with considerable progress being made towards this in the next three years.

We talked to Gordon Ferguson, the school’s Estate Manager.

“Four years ago, we installed the largest solar array of any school in Europe and this now provides one third of our annual electrical energy requirement. Since inception, it has saved 254,582Kg of CO2, the equivalent to planting 11,653 trees. We have looked at placing more solar panels on the roof spaces we have left, which could give the school a potential 295.5KWp of power. For roofing that is unsuitable for solar panels we are looking to install green roofs. This scheme will also have the benefit of insulating the roof.

Our new music building and pavilion both have Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHP) to heat the buildings and we are currently looking into using ASHPs to heat the swimming pool, further reducing the use of gas.

We have installed concrete pads ready to take electric charging points when we move over to a fleet of electric minibuses, however the electric minibus market has not developed as quickly as the car market and is a little behind in their development with batteries."

As well as looking at ways of reducing the school's electricity and gas consumption, we have also been looking at the use of flights for overseas trips. These trips provide some of the most memorable and life-changing experiences for the students, but they account for one third of the school's total carbon footprint. We are looking to offset trips such as taking the Lower Sixth to Trinity’s partner school in Malawi and adapting other trips to use other forms of transport to get to Europe or find more destinations within the UK.

Teachers Georgina Webber and Andrew Magee lead the school’s Green Council, working towards the Eco-Schools Green Flag Award, an international accreditation that has recognised and rewarded young people’s environmental actions for over 25 years. Some of the Council’s initiatives have included the Trinity Water Bottle scheme. Another is the introduction of hi-tech water filling stations which indicate how many plastic bottles have been saved – 37,000 so far! Meat Free Mondays are in the planning process and will hopefully be in place by the start of next term. The Council meets on a half termly basis to discuss key issues and delivered a whole school assembly on COP26 to raise awareness of the climate issue.

Simon Martin

Simon Martin, our chef at Trinity, put on a display of food for our sixth formers in the Mitre Theatre café to demonstrate how our catering team is working towards keeping food waste to a minimum and explained how they order ‘seconds’ from markets when available. He reminded students that whilst 'seconds' of fruit and vegetables may not conform to an ideal shape or size, they still taste the same. Simon went on to talk about the most common leftovers from the kitchen, for example, leftover jacket potatoes, banana skins and tomatoes - once cut, tomatoes deteriorate quickly.

The Sixth Form students flocked to try out all the food on display and thoroughly enjoyed sampling Simon's potato bread and gnocchi made from leftover jacket potatoes, his potato skin soup and tomato gazpacho. The firm favourites by far were some delicious sweet potato brownies on display. The kitchen staff weigh all food waste with the aim of reducing it over time and are constantly looking for recipes to use up leftovers. So, what can banana skins be used for? Believe it or not, they can be transformed into vegan bacon, pulled banana skin (akin to pulled pork) and banana skin curry.

Simon Virley, a parent at Trinity, visited the school to speak to our Green Council having spent two weeks in Glasgow at COP26.

Simon Virley and the Green Council

Simon is a Partner and UK Head of Energy and Natural Resources at KPMG and advises clients on strategy, regulation and deals in the UK energy market, including major companies such as BP and Shell.

He impressed upon students the urgency of addressing global warming. With the world at 1.1 - 1.2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, global warming is causing volatile weather patterns such as mass flooding and drought. The polar ice caps are melting fast, with huge icebergs breaking off. The vast majority of the world's cities are coastal, putting them at risk from flooding.

165 countries, including 28 new members announced at COP26, have pledged to cooperate in accelerating the global transition from coal to clean energy by joining the 'Powering Past Coal Alliance'. The UK has been reducing its reliance on coal for years and less than 2% of our electricity is now derived from coal-fired power stations.

Simon talked about ways in which global warming can be addressed, including:

• Offering financial support to developing countries to assist them to move away from fossil fuels.

• Controlling deforestation. Over 100 countries agreed to reverse deforestation, including Brazil, Russia and China.

• Decarbonising power - by focusing on wind and solar power, renewables and nuclear energy and the need to transition from gas.

• Moving to electric powered vehicles. Car manufacturers are shifting production to electric and hybrid cars which not only reduce emissions, but are also much cheaper to run although, currently, these vehicles are more expensive to buy.

• Heating our homes - the government wants to see 1 million heat pumps installed in homes across the UK every year. Heat pumps capture heat from the outdoors and moves it into your home. Whilst heat pumps are powered by electricity, they are economical to run. As the system does not burn fuel, like gas, there are no carbon emissions.

• Carbon capture and storage (CCS) - this is a process where CO2 released during industrial processes such as cement production and burning coal for generating electricity is captured and stored rather than being released into the atmosphere.

The UK has been reducing its reliance on coal for years and less than 2% of our electricity is now derived from coal-fired power stations.

The UK has been one of the most successful countries at cutting emissions and is almost halfway to achieving the goal of net zero. Students quizzed Simon on what they, and the school, can do to reduce emissions:

• Don't waste energy! Turn off lights and your laptop when you are not using them

• Methane is 25% more potent than CO2 and over 100 countries have signed up to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Everyone can help by having meat-free days

• The School's minibusesto be replaced by electric vehicles

• Carbon offsetting school trips - especially those abroad

• Ensuring the school buildings are well insulated

• Installing heat pumps to replace oil and gas fired systems

• Recycling waste

• Installing solar panels on rooftops