OXFORD Brookes University has netted £250,000 to spend on carbon emission reduction projects – just as the university has been ranked third greenest in the country.

Incentives such as offering free breakfast to people who arrived at the campus by bike have helped the university jump 13 places in the People and Planet league tables of environmental performance.

The money comes from the Salix Carbon Trust, and the university’s four sustainability officers are now getting together to work out how best to spend the grant.

It is likely to be spent in areas such as heating and lighting systems, which can impact dramatically on organisations’ carbon footprints.

Sustainability manager Harriet Waters said: “This reflects our attitude towards environmental issues. We have always been good at such awareness, but it is becoming more central to the university’s thinking.”

Brookes is rated highly in areas such as its sustainable transport plan, which includes the subsidised Brookes Bus network linking its campuses, employing an energy and carbon reduction manager and increasing staffing on sustainability from one part-time post to four full-time employees.

It has also increased what can be recycled on site, so that virtually the only things now going to landfill are food waste and soft plastics.

Brookes also hosts an annual energy-awareness week aimed at getting all staff and students to take responsibility for being more environmentally friendly.

Ms Waters said: “We try to raise awareness so that everyone on site realises their own individual impact.

“All new members of staff have induction training on sustainable issues and we talk to as many first-year students as we can.”

She said that green issues had also become a more in-tegral part of the university’s wider development plan.

She explained: “In the past, when we were undertaking construction projects, environmental issues would be on the wishlist at the start, but would then drop off due to budget constraints.

“It’s a completely different case now – we have an environmental policy sub-group which has to sign off on various elements of the construction plan.”

Topping Oxford charity People and Planet’s table was Nottingham Trent University, with the London School of Economics and Political Science second.