Sustainability
The students and staff at Ardingly College take sustainability very seriously. We are delighted to report the following key achievements in terms of improving our carbon footprint and our waste management across the College:
Carbon produced from energy consumption reduced by 26% or 534 tonnes over 5 years by:
- Installing a 500kw biomass boiler
- Installing photovoltaic cells on the roof of Burgess House and STEM
- Installing air source heat pumps
- Installing more energy-efficient boilers, lights, pumps, and other electrical equipment
Waste management
- Zero waste has been sent to landfill since 2014
- General waste reduced by 32% across the Senior school over the past 4 years
- Recycling waste streams expanded and includes: Paper, cardboard, plastics, food, metals, wood, electrical items, glass, fluorescent tubes, cooking oils, batteries, grounds vegetation and clothing.
Enrichment programme
Most 5th form students study the following themes:
- Definitions of environmental awareness
- The ways in which humans are impacting on the environment
- Exploration of the solutions to some of the world’s environmental issues. Topics covered include climate change, biodiversity loss, plastic pollution and ecological footprints.
The Solar Car
This is a wonderful example spearheaded by the College in terms of promoting solar energy and educational understanding to a new generation.
We are delighted to have recently won the TES award for Science, Technology and Engineering Team of the year 2020.
Additional to these achievements, we are delighted to share our ambitious goal from the Prep school …Prep school Eco-School are aiming to achieve the Green Flag bronze award by end of Trinity term 2021 and then go for Silver and Gold awards.
IT Department
Climate change and environmental damage is one of the most pressing issues of our age. Computers currently account for 2% of global carbon emissions so the IT department are playing their part in limiting environmental impact.
Ecosia search engine
We have changed our search engine to Ecosia. Ecosia is a social business founded in 2009 that uses the money gained from advertising search results to plant trees in projects around the world – so far they have been responsible for planting over 122 million trees! Every search contributes to their funds and it takes approximately 45 searches to plant a tree. The site even allows you to keep track of how many searches you have done using Ecosia, so you can see how many trees you have planted.
Printing
Printing statistics on the environmental impact that the school printers have are circulated weekly. Each week the report cites how many trees had to be cut down in order to produce the paper used as a school, how many lightbulbs could have been powered by the energy used and how many kilos of carbon were emitted by the use of printers. Sometimes it is unavoidable that a document has to be printed out, but the aim of circulating these statistics is to make users understand the effect that printing is having on our planet and start to consider alternative options where possible.
Disposal of IT equipment
We recycle every piece of equipment that we are able to, working with one of our suppliers to repurpose old equipment and avoid it going into landfill.