Leading the way in Sustainability — Looking ahead in 2019
By Professor Mark Ormerod, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost, Strategic lead for sustainability, Keele University
The four sustainability blogs so far this week have outlined the tremendous progress we have made as an institution in the last year in terms of our sustainability ambitions. They have focused on our distributed and collaborative approach to leadership, our awards, accolades and achievements, our highly effective partnership working with the Students’ Union and our student body, and our increasing profile, reputation and external engagement.
2018 saw work start on two hugely significant collaborative low carbon energy projects, the Smart Energy Network Demonstrator (SEND) and HyDeploy. These two flagship projects have already greatly enhanced the reputation of the University with industry, government and wider academia, putting Keele at the forefront of energy research. As implementation moves forward this year in earnest, these sector-leading projects, which will have genuine international impact and significance, will really elevate Keele’s profile and awareness of our energy and sustainability activities.
The ‘HyDeploy’ project, a highly innovative, pioneering green energy trial on the Keele campus will provide the first at-scale demonstration of blended hydrogen in the UK. We are delighted to be a partner in this prestigious national demonstrator, collaborative project, led by Cadent, and the Keele campus is the perfect test site, with the University operating its own private gas network, alongside our ambitious sustainability vision. HyDeploy has the potential to lead to a dramatic reduction in carbon emissions, paving the way to a low-carbon hydrogen economy.
2019 will also see great progress in the development of the Smart Energy Network Demonstrator (SEND), a £22m world-leading smart energy infrastructure and demonstrator being developed with Siemens. SEND will see Keele’s unique campus become a genuine living laboratory for sustainable energy research, education, business and community, and Europe’s largest at-scale demonstrator, where innovative new smart energy, renewable and energy-efficient technologies are researched, developed and tested in a real world environment, to create more agile power systems, providing a model for adoption by communities world-wide.
The Institute for Sustainable Futures has got off to a really encouraging start under the leadership of Professors Chris Fogwill and Zoe Robinson, and is establishing its identity as an interdisciplinary university research institute, with some great successes already, including major EU and UKRI grants led by Professors Maria Heckl and Toby Bruce, focusing on hydrogen combustion and food security and crop protection. We look forward to building on this momentum and these excellent successes, and significant progress through this year.
This year we will also be looking to build on Keele’s leading reputation for its education in sustainability work, led by Zoe Robinson, Director of Education for Sustainability. In particular work is advancing on the development of an innovative sustainability elective strand led by Rafe Hallett, Director of the new Keele Institute for Innovation and Teaching Excellence, and Zoe Robinson. We are also intending to add an increased emphasis on sustainability and embedding it into all aspects of our activities to student induction, as well as increasing student engagement with our myriad sustainability activities and initiatives, and build on the excellent partnership with the Students’ Union, the KPA and Think:Green.
The last 18 months has seen the completion of several new developments on campus, including the new Barnes Blocks Y & Z, Innovation Centre 5 and substantial extensions to the Huxley and David Weatherall buildings. These developments are employing the latest low-energy technologies, such as advanced LED lighting and smart heating systems, and have significantly lower energy consumption. The Barnes Blocks have roof top solar photovoltaic arrays, providing some renewable electricity to the blocks. As the campus continues to grow, with several large new developments being constructed, the challenge remains to ensure that each development is completed to the highest environmental standards.
All this activity and commitment to sustainability across all aspects of our operations is also reflected in the university having made a commitment to increasingly focus its investment in companies with a positive environmental and/or societal impact, in particular in areas of clean energy and technology. The University’s investments will be in line with its strategic aims and its environmental, social and ethical values. The university has made a commitment to divest from fossil fuel extraction companies, and to continual divestment from companies which do not meet the environmental and social values of the University, including arms companies.
So, although there remains much to be done, 2019 promises to be a really exciting year for Keele in terms of making big strides forward and really taking our sustainability ambitions and reputation to another level, building on our current momentum and a highly successful and eventful 2018, and continuous progress over recent years, to be increasingly recognised as an internationally leading institution for our approach to and reputation for sustainability.
