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Department for Children, Schools, and Families (DCSF) Building Schools for the future

Example of:
Strong leadership and direction in embedding sustainability in to the fabric of buildings

Key points:

  • Building Schools for the future is seeking to embed sustainability considerations across its £45 billion programme.

Building Sustainable Schools

  • Building Schools for the Future is a programme designed to rebuild or refurbish all secondary schools in England over 15 years at a cost of £45 billion. It has the capacity to reduce the UK public sector’s carbon emissions
  • Capital investment in England’s schools presents a key opportunity as the vast majority of the population will pass through the 3,500 secondary schools during their lives.
  • The schools estate contributes almost 15% of UK public sector carbon emissions.
  • The principal indicator of environmental impact used in the Building Schools for the Future programme is the Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method for schools—known as BREEAM Schools.
  • Schools in the BSF programme for new build and refurbishment are required to meet the ‘very good’ standard for BREAM. The design team are looking at how much it would typically cost for different types of schools to achieve the BREAM ‘excellent’ standard. BRE have produced a research report Putting a Price on Sustainable Schoolsfor DCSF, which is due for publication in late 2007.
  • The DCSF are making £110m of funding available to 200 new build schools to reduce carbon emissions by 60%. This will apply to secondary schools to be built between 2008-2011
  • Last year, the DCSF, with SDC held a consultation with schools and developed a framework concept called ‘the 8 doorways’, which includes categories such as ‘food and drink’, ‘energy and water’, ‘health and social wellbeing’ for schools to focus efforts on sustainability.
  • The DCSF have funded 3 pathfinders at approximately £2m each (it varies depending on proposals) to improve sustainability and investigate the possibility of achieving ‘BREEAM excellent’ along with other measures (meeting a minimum of 20% of energy demand using renewable technologies and providing opportunities for teaching/learning about the sustainable features of the school buildings). They will evaluate the results and use them to inform policy on sustainability. The schools are in Devon, Dorset and North Yorks. Devon plan to have a carbon neutral school with a wind turbine on site, Dorset will build a school with 95% carbon reduction and North Yorkshire are looking at 20% renewables and using local and recycled materials.

Reporting and benchmarking

  • DCSF are developing KPIs with Partnership for Schools to report on sustainability.