Cheney School has won a prestigious Energy Conscious Organisation Award after reducing electricity consumption.
The school in Headington, which was the first in the world to achieve Energy Conscious Organisation (EnCO) Status, gained one of only two awards presented this year at the EnCO annual conference.
Cheney School received the award at a special ceremony in London last month, alongside a global engineering corporation demonstrating that all types of organisations can get involved and do their bit.
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The secondary school, part of the River Learning Trust, became the first school to achieve EnCO Organisation status last year, after demonstrating to an expert panel that they have reduced energy consumption through behavioural change initiatives that ranged across the organisation.
The project has been led for five years by both the Finance and Operation teams and supported by the Headteacher and staff as well as local energy management consultancy Reduce Your Use.
Local energy management consultant, Wendy Cheeseman, an accredited EnCO practitioner, has been supporting the school through the project which has also generated significant energy cost savings, as well as carbon reduction.
Since the project began the school has reduced electricity consumption by almost a quarter to 23%, with overnight savings of 30%. Before we got started the carbon emissions associated with school electricity use was 266 tonnes CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent). The figure for the last 12 months is 107 tonnes CO2e, a 60% reduction.
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For many years out-of-hours consumption was the focus across the school by the Operations Team, but more and more staff and pupils are getting involved and switching off.
Phoebe Mortimer, lead KS3 English teacher and Sustainability Lead for the Trust said: “The commitment to sustainability and the drive to reduce carbon across the school has gathered momentum in recent years. This award and our electricity reduction is tangible proof that we follow through on intentions and commitments to living low carbon lifestyles at school for our pupils and in the workplace for staff.”
Headteacher Rob Pavey said: “This award demonstrates that Cheney is achieving carbon and energy reduction targets year-on-year but importantly it cuts costs for us. Any school can achieve this, it is good for budgets as well as the planet.”
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Wendy Cheeseman, the school’s energy consultant, said: “I recommend all schools to consider cutting energy consumption by more forensic analysis of their supply data showing when and why energy is consumed and if this is expected.”
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This story was written by Andy Ffrench, he joined the team more than 20 years ago and now covers community news across Oxfordshire.
Get in touch with him by emailing: Andy.ffrench@newsquest.co.uk
Follow him on Twitter @OxMailAndyF
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