Sustainable estate management: less harm, more good

Insight

19.09.2024

“Sustainability is no longer about doing less harm. It’s about doing more good”: unexpected words to hear from the CEO of Harley-Davidson, but prescient. It might be refined to say it’s about doing both.

As forward-looking institutions, many schools have long been ahead of the field in terms of looking to reduce their impact on the environment. Not just because of the increasing interest shown by pupils and parents in a school’s green credentials, although that is important too, but also because of the intrinsic benefits of creating a sustainable school environment and estate that will be loved by pupils and staff and endure through generations.

But what “more” can schools do to create a sustainable estate?

How schools can build a more sustainable estate

Where schools own rural land, now is the time to start thinking about how it is used. There is a “push” and a “pull”: both drought and flood are becoming more common and land managers may want to consider changing current land uses to make land more resilient to extreme weather in the future. There is also a “pull” in the form of the plethora of new schemes, offering exciting new ways of using land, either in terms of new ways of farming, like low till or regenerative farming, or for more stand-alone environmental purposes. These new schemes not only benefit the environment but can also be (very) lucrative. They can be broadly categorised as either publicly or privately funded:

Publicly funded schemes: following Brexit and the withdrawal of subsidy under the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) from 1 January this year, we are now in a tail-off period of delinked payments. The Government is redirecting the money from BPS into the Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMs) and a host of other schemes and grants. The Sustainable Farming Incentive, the most accessible rung of the ELMs ladder, combines new actions alongside existing actions from countryside stewardship and is designed to encourage farming in harmony with the environment. There are now 102 different actions to choose from, paying from £5 per 100 meters for recording hedgerow condition to £747 per hectare for planting and maintaining “bumblebird” mix.
Privately funded schemes: carbon credits, nutrient credits and supplying offsite biodiversity net gain (BNG) to developers, are examples of emergent “natural capital” markets into which forward-thinking rural land managers may (also) be interested to venture. In contrast to ELMs these are largely privately funded. Selling natural capital “goods” on the private market may offer greater financial rewards, but also involves commensurately greater risks and a higher degree of complexity. Many also require long-term commitments, such as 30 years for BNG, and giving over land with strategic potential to an environmental use now may impact on the likelihood of it being able to be developed in the longer term.

Land use and farm subsidy is no longer a “one size fits all” answer: it is unlikely that one scheme, or one use, will work for the whole estate. Thought therefore needs to be given to what will work on which land, which schemes can be “stacked” on the same land and crucially, how it all dovetails together to create a good return and a genuinely sustainable method of farming and land use in the long-term, which will prove robust in the face of a changing climate.

Note that where land is farmed by a tenant, a code of practice for agricultural landlords and tenants has recently been published. This emphasises sustainability and drives home the message that landlords and tenants should work collaboratively, so that both parties can extract maximum reward from the new opportunities.

Retrofitting older school buildings for sustainability

It is likely that schools will own older (possibly listed) buildings, which are likely to be less energy efficient. What can schools do now to make such buildings more sustainable and future-proof them against the anticipated, renewed drive from the government to meet net zero by 2050?

Energy efficiency: in September last year, the previous government rowed back on its original intention to increase minimum energy efficiency standards (MEES) for let, domestic properties from the current minimum level of Grade E to Grade B by 2030. The new Labour Government has indicated that it is keen to pick this back up and has stated its intention to raise MEES across the let domestic sector to Grade C by 2030. It has also pledged to invest an extra £6.6 billion to upgrade five million homes. The commercial (non-domestic) sector is still in limbo, but the Government has indicated it will revisit the previous government’s proposal to raise the minimum rating for let non-domestic premises from the current Grade E to Grade B by 2030 but we will have to wait for further announcements about its intentions. Whatever happens, energy efficiency of buildings is likely to become more closely scrutinised and regulated over the coming months and years. More stringent inspections of heating and air conditioning systems are also in the offing. Aside from any regulatory requirements, with the rising cost of gas and electricity, it is a commercial imperative to make existing buildings as energy efficient as possible.

Schools can audit their existing buildings now to assess EPC ratings and expiry dates and obtain advice on how to make them more energy efficient. Be aware, however, that the recommendation report annexed to an EPC is automatically generated by software and provides limited practical guidance. Where appropriate, therefore, a professional should be engaged to provide a report on potential improvement measures. These may include upgrading insulation, moving away from fossil-fuel heating systems (and towards low-carbon alternatives, such as solar or heat pumps) and installing more economical electrical appliances, but what will work best needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Retrofitting energy efficiency measures to older buildings (rather than building new, “green” buildings) can save costs and reduce the embodied carbon involved in tearing down existing buildings and replacing them with new. As an added benefit, retrofitted buildings will be cheaper to run in the long term, and potentially more visually attractive, designed with function and the wider community in mind.

Carbon reduction: there remains no industry-wide standard or requirement for measuring and reporting carbon emissions (other than for certain large enterprises), but this lack of transparency is unlikely to last. Tough action is going to be needed soon, if the government are going to meet their carbon reduction targets. Schools need to consider their role (and timetable) in achieving a net zero position and consider lining up the requisite experience and resource now to achieve it.
EV charging: there will be an estimated 18 million electric vehicles (EV) in the UK by 2030, but the infrastructure to charge them needs to catch up. The Government has pledged to invest £1 billion to boost the roll-out of the charging network. Recent regulations have been issued about EV charging points, and planning conditions dealing with EV charging points are becoming both more prevalent and onerous.

Where staff use cars, schools will need to consider making provision for EV charging points.

Development of new or existing school buildings

Where a school wants to build new buildings (or redevelop existing ones), it should consider the environmental impact of that building, both during the construction process and during the lifecycle of the new (or redeveloped) building.

There are a number of voluntary schemes for measuring the environmental credentials of a building, the most widely used of which is the BREEAM (the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology) certification. This assesses, rates and certifies a building’s environmental sustainability. A school may want to target a BREEAM rating of “excellent” or “outstanding” for new buildings.

When it comes to applying for any necessary planning consent for the building work, schools will find that planning policy is becoming increasingly driven by environmental criteria like net-zero carbon strategies and a building’s sustainability during its lifecycle. As well as satisfying the BNG requirement (where applicable), planning conditions are likely to be imposed on the development regarding the materials used, energy and waste consumption, cycle storage provision, EV charging points, waste disposal and flood-risk management. These will need to be anticipated and factored into the cost and works schedule.

In appointing its construction team for the works, a school may also wish to consider the contractor’s (and any sub-contractor’s) environmental, social and governance record. For example:

In relation to the materials used in the development, the school should seek information from its construction team about how they harvest their building materials, whether they use sustainable and local materials where possible, whether they adapt and reuse materials and about the policies they have in place to manage the level of waste generation and recycling.
On the social and governance side, the school should check how the contractor and sub-contractors treat their workers, whether they comply with employment laws and hit equality and diversity targets at board level and what mechanisms are put in place for the health and safety of their employees on site.

Wherever possible, requirements to use certain materials, or for the contractor to meet a certain BREEAM rating, should be built into the construction contracts to ensure they are bound to do so.

As environmental issues continue to climb up public and political agendas, they are becoming a key consideration for every school in its estate management, driven by both social responsibility and commercial interest. Focussing on improving the environmental credentials of their estates, be that land or buildings, could give schools a competitive advantage and longer-term savings, as well as permitting them to uncover and add value to their estates in an ethical, resilient and responsible way with a positive social, environmental and economic impact.

Please note this content was originally published in the Summer 2024 edition of the Independent Schools’ Bursars Association (ISBA) termly magazine, “The Bursar’s Review”, and is reproduced with the kind permission of ISBA.

This publication is a general summary of the law. It should not replace legal advice tailored to your specific circumstances.