If I've got CUBO responsibility for Sustainability, York must practice what I preach!
Jon Greenwood - Sustainability
The start of the new academic year at the University of York held extra significance this month as it saw students moving into the first building to open on a major expansion to our campus.
Goodricke College offers accommodation for 600 students and in the next 12 months it will be joined by new homes for four academic departments alongside a ‘hub' building designed to provide training, act as a spur for knowledge transfer and to host University research groups.
Sustainability lies at the heart of this development with all the buildings designed to achieve a "very good" BREEAM rating and to encourage efficient energy and water use and facilitate easy recycling.
They will sit in parkland setting with the landscaping including green areas between buildings and a large naturalistic lake with wetlands for wildlife, increasing the bio-diversity of the area. The area will also be car-free except for disabled access and service vehicles.
The University is committed to meeting at least ten per cent of the campus extension's energy needs from renewable sources and plans are in place for combined heat and power unit fuelled by locally-sourced biomass.
Work is also underway with Partnership for Renewables, examining whether the new site could be a suitable location for two wind turbines with the potential to generate energy equivalent to that used by 2,300 households every year.
The principles underpinning the development of the campus extension build on the extensive work undertaken to reduce the impact of our existing estate on the environment.
Partnership work with the Carbon Trust has resulted in significant reductions in the amount of energy wasted in our older buildings through measures such as improving insulation, installing new lighting controls and voltage optimisation.
An agreement with the local authority and a waste management company has seen the amount of University waste that is recycled rise to 40 per cent while our sustainable travel plan uses a mixture of charges and incentives to encourage more staff to cycle use public transport to come to work.
