Vandyke is committed to reducing our carbon footprint as much as possible in line with the Department for Education’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy. This brings together short, medium and longer-term actions that will enable us to make progress towards achieving 4 strategic aims and overarching vision The target date for this 2030.
The DfE strategy document can be found here.
One of the ways we do this is by creating a Climate Action Plan, which we review each year to ensure it is current and relevant. Our current plan illustrates that we are performing really well in terms of actions to reduce our carbon footprint. The latest plan will include more targeted actions to enable us to further reduce our Co2 emissions.
Over the last year, the school has saved a significant sum of money on energy bills, which is not only great for our reduction plan, but is also money which can be ploughed back into our children’s education.
Some examples of the ways the school is achieving this are:
- Smart use of heating, and only using it when necessary, thus reducing unnecessary energy consumption
- Ongoing programme of replacing older internal lighting with new, energy-efficient LED light panels
- Encouraging the use of cycling and car-sharing through our School Travel Plan
- Electric vehicle charging points installed in our main car park
- Energy-efficient floodlights on our 3G pitches and netball courts, as well as LED street lighting throughout the site
- A procurement policy which focuses not only on cost, but also energy efficiency of, for example, new appliances and equipment
- Use, where possible, of transport companies and contractors who share our vision and who are striving themselves to reduce their carbon emissions
- The creation of an Eco club and gardening club, which is teaching our students about sustainability on a very practical level
If you have any queries or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact our sustainability lead, Keith Lavery, on 01525 636700.
