Green Impact Awards

The Green Impact Awards are an annual University-wide competition. This year, Clare was awarded Platinum (the highest award), continuing our track record of winning gold or platinum in each of the nine years since the awards began, the strongest run of any college. Our most recent Green Impact Awards are proudly displayed in the Old Court Porters’ Lodge.
This year we were particularly proud to win a special category award for Environmental Improvement for our refurbishment of student accommodation at Braeside. Sustainability was a key element of the project, and the College worked with local practice Archangel Architects, a qualified Passivhaus Designer experienced in improving the energy efficiency of existing buildings. Retrofitting extends a building’s lifespan and provides an excellent opportunity to significantly reduce operational emissions.

The Staircase competition

Keen to focus on getting the little things right, Jo worked with the Union of Clare Students (JCR) and the Accommodation team to run a staircase competition in Memorial Court during Lent term. Housekeeping staff checked for lights and appliances left on in student rooms, with the most conscientious staircase winning tickets to formal hall. Even though the competition ran for just 3 weeks it resulted in a 10% cut in January and February energy use compared with the most recent pre-COVID year.

A new eco-licence

Following on from trials run in 2021-22, the Tutorial Office, Accommodation and Buildings teams got together to devise a new, lower-price ‘eco-licence’ housing contract for students who don’t need to occupy their rooms during vacations. This will mean that, from next year, students needing to stay in College over vacations will be housed in clusters, allowing the heating in other rooms to be reduced to a minimum.

Heating trials

In order to investigate options for replacing the Memorial Court boilers with air source heat pumps, Jo has led a series of heating trials, lowering running temperatures across the existing system to simulate how it would feel if rooms were heated via an air source heat pump. Further work is planned to understand how best to heat our historic buildings in a sustainable way. The current most likely option for Memorial Court is air source heat pumps that will heat the water to 20-30oC, supplemented by a secondary system to raise the temperature further. As part of plans to de-gas Old Court, the College is actively involved in a cross-college study examining the feasibility of using the River Cam as a heat source for water-source heat pumps.

LED lighting

The College has a long-standing policy to replace all lighting with LEDs. This is generally done when a bulb fails or during a building renovation. Undergraduate accommodation in Castle End currently has 2D lighting and a project is underway to replace all 2D lights with LED fittings of the same size (to avoid further redecoration being required) over the coming year. This will reduce the energy demand for the building as the new light fittings should save 50-75%. The total energy saving for this should be in the region of 5000 kWh a year.

Catering

Ruminant animals such as cows and sheep emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas, as they digest grasses and plants. Production of ruminant meat has similarly high environmental costs measured in other ways (water and land use, eutrophication, biodiversity impact).
This year, following work undertaken across the University, members of the Environment Committee and the Catering Advisory Committee agreed to pilot the removal of stall fed beef and lamb from evening menus in the Buttery. This led to a near halving of the Greenhouse gas footprint of College-wide meat purchases for Michaelmas term (compared with 2019, the last year before the pandemic). With the monthly footprint of remaining meat purchases roughly three times greater last July and August than during Michaelmas term, efforts are also being made to reduce the amount of ruminant meat offered to conference clients.

Student ambassadors

The success of these initiatives is dependent on student involvement and we are grateful to have student representatives on the Environment Committee supporting our work and bringing new ideas to the table. This year, the student-run society Clare Goes Green ran a successful Veganuary challenge, putting on various events throughout the month, culminating in a sell-out plant-based formal hall. They also hosted a popular outdoor plant-potting event at Castle Court in conjunction with Clare Growers and Cambridge Climate Society.

Investment strategy

The College encourages its Investment Committee to seek out investments which offer both attractive risk adjusted returns and make positive contributions to sustainability. The College has already divested from public equity holdings in fossil fuel producers (defined as businesses generating 10% or more of revenue from this activity).