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Executive Summary ................................................................................................................... 3
History ................................................................................................................................... 3
Operational Structure ......................................................................................................... 4
Organisational Chart .............................................................................................................. 5
The Programme of Work ........................................................................................................ 7
Less food waste ................................................................................................................... 7
Better Energy Conservation .............................................................................................. 7
More Cycling ........................................................................................................................ 7
Recycling, Re-Use and Waste .......................................................................................... 7
Communications ...................................................................................................................... 8
Key messages ..................................................................................................................... 9
Transport Messages ........................................................................................................... 9
Food Messages ................................................................................................................... 9
Energy Messages ................................................................................................................ 9
Waste Messages ................................................................................................................. 9
Key Internal & External Partners ........................................................................................ 10
Internal ................................................................................................................................ 10
External ............................................................................................................................... 10
Curriculum Links ................................................................................................................ 11
External Communications ................................................................................................ 11
Marketing ................................................................................................................................ 11
Operational Activities & Objectives .................................................................................... 12
Energy Conservation ........................................................................................................ 12
Cycling ................................................................................................................................ 12
Item re-use ......................................................................................................................... 12
Food Waste ........................................................................................................................ 13
Item Re-use waste saved ................................................................................................ 13
TOTALS SAVED ............................................................................................................... 13
Health and Safety & Risk Assessment .............................................................................. 14
Key Tasks ............................................................................................................................... 15
Visible Activities Timeline for 2012-2015 ........................................................................... 17
Finance ................................................................................................................................... 18
Legacy ................................................................................................................................. 19
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Transition Heriot-Watt (THW) was formed in January 2011 and became fully operational, following CCF funding for one year to promote sustainable travel at
Heriot-Watt University (HWU), with the recruitment of a co-ordinator in May 2011.
THW represents the H WU community (“the community”) at their Riccarton Edinburgh campus, seven miles west of Edinburgh city centre. It consists of academics, professional services, under- and post-graduate students and researchers, numbering around 8,200 people.
THW has now been awarded an additional three years funding from the CCF to extend its activities until March 2015.
THW’s aim is to reduce the carbon footprint associated the campus, and also provide social and economic benefits for its community. It will do this by encouraging better energy conservation, greener travel, more recycling, the reuse of students’ unwanted items, promoting better diets and lowering the amount of food waste.
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THW operates within the standards and vision of HWU, and works closely with university departments and staff. It has a steering group with representation open to, and from, all sections of the university with a wide variety of skill sets reflecting the diversity of skills, research and subjects studied at HWU; there is also an executive member who as a senior manager at HWU assists with the daily work of the project.
The team consists of a full-time co-ordinator, two full-time staff (to be recruited April
2012) and three interns each working 12 hours a week. There is a growing volunteer base who work with the team to deliver its objectives.
The four programmes within the project are delivered at various times across the year, and along with a communications group form the five working groups with their own separate project plans:
Food
Energy
Travel
Waste
Cookery lessons and promotion of good food and cutting food waste
Encouraging saving energy
Tackling the barriers around cycling by training and teaching maintenance
More reuse of unwanted students’ items
Communications IT, communications, social media, events and promotion
The project runs until March 2015 and project activities are being designed to continue after this date to ensure a long-lasting legacy of greener action at HWU.
HWU Food Society started on the back of the previous THW project, and this along with other spin-off work will continue to be encouraged.
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We will work closely with departments and Schools at HWU to ensure that we cover risk, H&S assessment and work in partnership to ensure well run events, good project management and a joint message to students and staff.
We have met with, and will work with, the Safety Office, liaise with the Estates Dept. over actions that have operational impacts, work with Procurement to ensure we buy items from approved suppliers or as cheaply as possible, with the Centre for Sport and Exercise to establish a coordinated Behaviour Change message, with the
Chaplaincy and HWU Student Union to ensure we work well with established routines, projects and events, and with established groups such as the Food Society and cycling clubs. We will endeavour to work within established roles and processes to deliver added benefit to behaviour change at HWU.
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We will work with the Healthy Working Lives group and Hospitality Services at HWU to help reduce carbon associated with wasted food and the use of processed foods, helping the community eat more healthily and cheaply. The project will provide free cookery lessons, especially for freshers, and free occasional healthy lunches where we can engage people as they eat, attracting people from all over the community, providing a great social benefit at the Chaplaincy kitchen. We’ll run a “Beat the
Takeaway” style programme based on the BBC TV programme, putting it up on social media and YouTube and focus on using left-overs and fresh, seasonal food.
We will conduct a feasibility study into setting up a community garden at the campus which will form part of a second, later application to funding partners including the
CCF. The study will research community (student and staff) support and enthusiasm for gardening on campus, identify possible locations, examining issues such as drainage, soil condition, security, governance, possible CO
2 e savings, detailed costs, softer benefits to the community (social, mental, physical health etc.) operational impacts on the university, activating the community to growing local food, and provide support and links to other Edinburgh and Lothians community and university gardens. This study will report by September 2012.
With the help of the Energy Saving Trust & Students Union THW plan to engage students in Halls, flats and homes to reduce energy bills, give advice on insulation, provide low-energy light bulbs, computer switch-off plugs, energy meters, shower timers and promote a general switch-off, linking into national EST programmes. A high carbon-saving strand to our work.
Cycling maintenance workshops will mend cycles and encourage people to learn how to do mend their own, raising the profile of cycling. Cycles abandoned by students will be refurbished and loaned for free, with free cycle training sessions, weekly cycle ride-outs and bicycle group commutes
– all new activities for THW.
We want to re-use items left by students when they finish with Halls or flats, clean, check and give them out free to new students. We will also encourage recycling to a much higher extent, and work to cut down on packaging and food waste in outlets.
We will provide and promote re-usable drinks containers for hot and cold drinks.
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In the original project, Transition HeriotWatt ran as a ‘bolt-on’ project to the university. It used the Heriot-Watt name, but deliberately did not use the HWU pennant or branding. This left it in a grey area where the organisation ran as a separate entity, without senior management oversight, but was identified with the
HWU through its use of the university’s name.
The new project is around six times bigger than the old project, with more activity and greater visibility, and therefore a greater reputational issue for all concerned. It has been agreed to retain the community ownership of the project through the steering group, but to also provide management support through a senior manager, the Director of the Centre for Sport and Exercise. This fits well with the behaviour change remit of CSE, and will provide support and direction for the project, meaning it will work better with HWU initiatives such as Healthy Working Lives and other departments such as Estates, Procurement within the Flexible Framework for procurement, and Hospitality.
Getting communications right is key. The project is designed to provide positive messages on what we can do better. Negative messages such as being anti-car or wishing to charge for car-parking for exampl e are not part of THW’s remit.
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Everyone can do something, however small
The environment is central to what we do, but not the whole message
It is cheaper, easier, healthier and faster to do things better for the environment
Mental health is a key issue for students and staff - living better helps
-
If you can’t take the bus or cycle, then think about a smaller car
Travelling better helps those most on lower wages, for example car-sharing
-
We’re not anti-car, but think about your options
Daunted by cycle maintenance or lack of road skills? We can help
It is cheaper, and faster, to eat fresh and local food
Thinking about where your food comes from is good for you & the environment
Take responsibility for what you eat
Not anti-meat, but less meat
Multi-cultural cookery is fun and healthy to try
Using fresh produce and using left-overs cuts waste
-
It’s fun – join us for “Come Dine with Me”, or “Beat the Take Away”
Saving money and the environment can be as simple as knowing how your heating works
Why waste money on un-needed heat and hot water when you can spend it on better things?
You can keep warm, for less
Learn how to engage your landlord to improve your home
4 minutes in the shower or switching off that monitor makes a difference
-
It’s cheaper to re-use and better for the environment than recycling
We used to re-use and mend , it’s something we need to re-learn
Re-use can connect us to the environment and help us take responsibility for our consumption
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CSE
Estates Dept.
HWUSU
People and Planet Group
Food Society
Corporate Communications
Web Team
Procurement
Hospitality
Halls Housekeeping
Halls Wardens
Chaplaincy
Media Services
Campus Services
Schools
Other Professional Departments
Climate Challenge Fund
Community gardening projects
Cycling Scotland
Local Food co-operatives, community groups and charities
Energy Saving Trust
Changeworks
The Bike Station & other cycling co-ops and organisations
Edinburgh Council
Re-use and recycling charities & companies
Scottish Government Climate Change groups
Other universities undertaking green working
Green League
People and Planet Scotland
NUS Scotland
Other Transition groups
Other potential funders
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As a learning environment, we teach best practice in energy, transport and other topics liked to THW’s work. Both THW and HWU can benefit from co-operating, attending and listening to student presentations, getting involved in the curriculum, offering research proposals and making practical the theory taught at the university.
This can provide a national base for sustainable, practical and tested energy, food, travel and resource management.
THW will co-operate fully with Corporate Communications in its work, and will always follow the standards and vision that HWU has established. This will involve regular meetings with press staff, planning of launches, individual initiatives and looking at what awards and accreditation THW & HWU should strive for.
THW’s work is around positive encouragement to take action on Climate Change. As such marketing is a key element of the work.
We will put on events, join with other groups to co-host and attend university events, and produce and distribute a range of marketing materials, from green travel maps to pledge cards, and produce promotional items such as pens, cycling slap-bands, jute bags and clothing.
A full marketing plan will be developed in the first weeks of the project.
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The average household uses 3,300kwh of electricity and 20,500kwh of gas per year 1 . Although student households are atypical (on average more people per house, poorer housing stock, less insulation, less knowledge of energy conservation, less household income, average lower age) it is difficult to find student specific data, so the national average household figures have been used.
Our energy ambassadors will target 50 student and staff households per year seeking to save them 25% on their energy usage:
50 households x 3,300kwh electricity/25% (saving 825kwh) x 3 years = 123,750kwh saved = 73,467kg CO
2 e
50 households x 20,500kwh gas/25% (saving 5,125kwh) x 3 years = 768,750kwh saved = 212,351kg CO
2 e totalling 285,818kg CO
2 e savings. We expect life-time savings to continue at a good rate, on average behavioural change lasting for five years after the project ends.
Total possible life-time savings are additionally 952,726 kgCO
2 e
We will target 100 people per year to cycle rather than take the bus, and 100 to cycle rather than drive their own car. Based on an average commute to Heriot-Watt of
10km per day, and an average attendance on site of 120 days for students per annum and 200 days for staff, estimating 75% of participants will be students, 25% staff, gives:
75 students travelling by cycle rather than by bus x 10km x 120 days x 3 years =
270,000km
25 staff travelling by cycle rather than by bus x 10km x 200 days x 3 years =
150,000km
Total bus km saved 420,000 or 92,937kg CO
2 e
75 students travelling by cycle rather than by car (small car assumed) x 10km x 120 days x 3 years = 270,000km (saving 54,402kg CO
2 e)
25 staff travelling by cycle rather than by car (medium car assumed) x 10km x 200 days x 3 years = 150,000km (saving 37,467kg CO
2 e)
Total saving of CO
2 e is calculated as 184,806kg CO
2 e
We expect behavioural changes to last an average of three years, meaning a lifetime saving of an additional 184,806 kgCO
2 e
We will re-use, and therefore prevent the need to produce a new product and landfill the old one, 500kg of small WEEE products such as toasters, kettles and other small
1 www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article11538.html
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electrical items, saving 880kg of CO
2 e and 500kg of larger WEEE items such as
TVs, dryers, washing machines, saving 663kg CO
2 e over three years (these actions also stop landfilling CO
2 e amounting to 17kg CO
2 e)
We will collect 1t of textiles and clothing, saving 22,310kg CO
2 e. We expect these savings to continue after the life of the project, using volunteers to organise item redistribution. Total over three years: 23,870kgCO
2 e. Life-time behavioural change is more difficult to calculate for this activity as it is geographically based at HWU, but we expect the habits of wearing used clothing and sourcing reused other items to remain as a behaviour, estimated for five years. Life-time savings could be additionally 39,783 kgCO
2 e
We estimate that 9,000t of food are wasted per year by the community at Heriot-
Watt, based on just over a tonne of wasted food per person per year 2 . We will aim to reduce that by 1,000t per year over three years, saving 3,000t from landfill and
3,000t from new food not needing to be produced. This gives a total kgCO
2 e saving of 12,120 kgCO
2 e. Food waste programmes typically show life-time savings over 10 years, or an additional 40,400 kgCO
2 e
We will also save 250kg of small WEEE items being produced or land-filled each year, 500kg of larger WEEE items, and 1,000kg of textiles, totalling 70,187 kgCO
2 e over three years. Lifetime savings we estimate will be around five years, or an additional life-time saving of 116,978 kgCO
2 e
Energy conservation: 285,818kg CO
2 e (+lifetime savings of 1,238,544 kgCO
2 e) =
1,524tCO
2 e
Cycling 184,806kg CO
2 e (+lifetime savings of 184,806 kgCO
2 e) = 369 tCO
2 e
Item re-use 23,870kg CO
2 e (+lifetime savings of 39,783 kgCO
2 e) = 63 tCO
2 e
Less Food Waste 12,120kg CO
2 e (+lifetime savings of 40,400 kgCO
2 e) = 52 tCO
2 e
Re-use household and bedding items 70,187 kgCO
2 e (+lifetime savings of 116,978 kgCO
2 e) = 187tCO
2 e
Grand Total: 576t CO
2 e
Life-time total savings (project life + expected life-time savings): 2,125tCO
2 e
2 http://peopleandplanet.org/goinggreener/food
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THW will work with HWU risk managers and health and safety officials to ensure all activities are risk-assessed and as low a risk as possible. The Risk Manager will be the co-ordinator who is ultimately responsible for H&S for THW.
The project will be insured using its own funds, but THW will work on risk liability with the university to ensure all initiatives are fully covered.
A project risk analysis will be completed by May 2012.
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Note: as per the application approval. Subject to suggestions and adaptation.
Gantt Chart
PERIOD PROJECT ACTIVITIES and
MONITORING & EVALUATION
TASKS
RESOURCES NEEDED
April 2012 Coordinator and three established interns
May 2012
Recruit staff: food officer, cycle officer
Start re-development of website
Advertise for community garden feasibility report researcher and appoint
Commence community garden feasibility report, reports September
2012
Work with students finishing year 1 to ensure cycles not cars are bought for year 2
Energy Ambassador training and start of home visits (on-going throughout project)
Develop cycle maintenance workshop schedule
Purchase cycle maintenance equipment
Drinks containers given out for free
Collection of unwanted items for redistribution
Consultant to undertake community gardening feasibility.
Site for cycle maintenance shed
June 2012
July 2012
August 2012
September
2012
Provide cycling training sessions
(on-going monthly)
Start of occasional free social engagement lunches (on-going)
Provide cookery lessons for staff and post-grad students at HWU over the Summer
Prep for Freshers arriving, setting of food, cycling and energy activities for the year ahead
Setting up of re-use systems
Community Garden report due
New students arrive: Freshers cookery lessons
Push with students new and returning on energy conservation.
First redistribution of bedding and household items for free
Cycling officer
Food officer
Food officer
THW team
THW team
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October
2012
November
2012
December
2012
January
2013
February
2013
March 2013
1 st Quarter
2013/14
2 nd Quarter
2013/14
3 rd Quarter
2013/14
4 th Quarter
2013/14
1
2014/15
2 nd Quarter
2014/15
3 rd Quarter
2014/15
4 st th
Quarter
Quarter
2014/15
After that
Autumn food events
Energy ambassador volunteer recruitment
Get Set for Winter energy conservation
THW team
Energy ambassadors
Christmas re-use distribution, cookery courses around festive themes
Food officer, volunteers
Film nights promoting sustainability Co-ordinator
Train volunteers to support paid staff
Cycling training sessions start for the Spring
Spring into Cycling events
Autumn food events
Energy ambassador volunteer recruitment
Get Set for Winter energy conservation
Christmas food events and cookery lessons
THW team
THW team
Film nights promoting sustainability Co-ordinator
Spring into cycling events Cycling officer
Autumn food events
Energy ambassador volunteer recruitment
Get Set for Winter energy conservation
Christmas food events and cookery lessons
Film nights promoting sustainability
End of project conference and workshops
Continue with key actions including home energy audits, and cycling maintenance classes.
THW team
Cycling officer
Cycling officer
THW team
THW team
Co-ordinator
HWUSU and volunteer cycle maintenance engineers, food ambassadors.
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Work goes on behind the scenes on most initiatives all year, but we also plan a visible activity process.
Activity Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Energy
Ambassadors
Cycling
Maintenance
Cycling
Training
Halls Re-use
Cookery lessons
Lunches
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The project has received £388,544 of funding from the CCF. We are also applying for £20k from Cycling Scotland and there is scope to apply for further funding, for example in planting trees, or developing a community garden.
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This element was key to us getting funding. Project activities have been specifically chosen and designed to make it possible for volunteer groups, societies and HWU to continue after 2015. For example, the Food Society is already active, Halls re-use is managed as a core activity by several universities already, energy ambassador work could be seen as a necessary core activity for student welfare, and encouraging cycling could be delivered by a volunteer group.
Leaving a legacy does not impose a requirement or expectation on the university that there will be a cost involved. All of THW’s activities, once set-up and running, could be delivered by existing staff, volunteers and societies.
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