Baroness Delyth Morgan - Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges Conference
Exeter University - 31 March 2008

I know that many people feel that there's a real sense in which green is the new black. Everyone, it seems - or at least, anyone with any sense - professes both concern about environmental damage and climate change. And some people reflect that concern in a really wide range of practical actions.

I guess that these days most of us recycle, with the encouragement of our local councils. And in the last few weeks we've seen a veritable tidal wave of collective British guilt about using the humble supermarket plastic bag. Frankly, I think that's a bit of a fad, but I don't really care, provided that it's a fad which produces a beneficial result, which I think it will.
More people that ever before are installing solar power cells to heat and light their homes. More than ever before, certainly in London, are taking public transport or riding a bicycle to work every day. Sales of less environmentally damaging cars are booming, and all over the country people are joining car-sharing schemes. increasing numbers of people are thinking about their own carbon footprint and offsetting their emissions.

I'm going to say a word here for my own Department. In our pretty ghastly - to look at - 1970s concrete home, we've introduced some things that are surprisingly innovative for a Government Department.

• Motion-sensitive light switchesl.
• Printers that use both sides of a sheet of paper rather than just one,
• Cardboard paper recycling boxes known more or less affectionately as “treehuggers”,
• Somewhere for those people who want to cycle to work to park their bicycles.

None of that is exactly rocket science. But you'd be surprised - or possibly you wouldn't be - how unusual these things are in Whitehall. In the role which the Prime Minister has given us as the champions of innovation across Government, we shall be encouraging more Departments to follow our lead.

I say all this by way of preamble in order to highlight how Britain is changing. The Government has set ambitious targets in the Climate Change Bill to reduce the UK's carbon emissions by at least 26 per cent by 2020, and 60 per cent by 2050. Now, Government targets are sometimes given a bad name. But in this case, I think the whole country shares our appreciation of how vital it is for all our sakes and those of our children to ensure that these targets are met.
In view of that, and of the fact that our further and higher education sectors together are so large in terms both of real estate and of people, it might appear strange that you don't hear my Ministerial colleagues and I speak about their environmental impact more often.

I can explain that fact in the same terms that one of my officials used the other day. We don't intervene more to encourage further and higher education institutions to maximize their positive impact on climate and the environment for the simple reason that no one in either sector is going to give us an argument.
This conference is evidence of that. You've been meeting for the last 12 years, since long before the need to tackle climate change assumed the importance in public discourse that it holds today.
You've played, and continue to play, a leadership role both in raising awareness of environmental issues and in offering the rest of us practical examples of what we can do about them.
I say that not to invite you all to become complacent - that's the opposite of what's needed - but because it's the simple truth.
We can look at what the further education sector has achieved.

Further education and skills have a significant role to play in sustainable development. That goes for the way in which providers manage their resources, the learning opportunities they deliver and their engagement with employers and communities.
The AoC's Green Colleges event last year showcased the outstanding way in which some further education colleges are embedding sustainability into their everyday working practices - from recycling yoghurt pots to make furniture; to using chip fat fuel to run the college's transport fleet. This commitment is reflected in the fact that three further education providers won “Green Gown” awards this year.

The Learning and Skills Council has demonstrated a most welcome determination to help the sector raise the bar on sustainability. It published its supporting strategy From Here to Sustainability - good title, by the way - as long ago as September 2005.

Only last Friday, my colleague John Denham - who's also here in Exeter today - announced a record £2.3 billion investment in capital projects over the next three years.

That capital strategy sets out our most ambitious plans yet for sustainable FE buildings

To qualify for Learning and Skills Council capital funding, all capital project proposals will need to meet stringent environmental criteria. And funding is available to support sustainable development measures in the redevelopment of the further education estate.

Capital project proposals will be expected to maximise the use of natural lighting and ventilation by, amongst other actions, the use of wind and solar heating in power generation for lighting and heating and rainwater capture to reduce water usage. We would also expect the college to share its experiences of being a sustainable exemplar with partner schools and the local community, so that they too can learn about sustainable development.

Our ambition is for all new college buildings to be zero carbon by 2016, two years ahead of the Government's target for public sector building announced in the Budget. A taskforce advising on targets for all college buildings to be carbon zero will report in the summer.

Of course, the role of the higher education sector is better known and more prominent - though in my view no more important - than that of further education and skills. It was academics who first alerted us to the phenomenon of climate change and have continued to inform us about its progress ever since.
But in its own right, the higher education sector has the capacity to be a major contributor for good or ill to environmental sustainability. In what they teach. In how their estates are organised. And indeed in their procurement policies. AT the end of 2006, Universities UK estimated the annual economic impact of the higher education sector as £46 billion. That includes a great deal of purchasing power.
The latest figures we have show that universities spend about £300 million a year on energy alone. They consume almost 8 million kilowatts of energy and 26 million cubic litres of water. HEFCE estimates that all this amounts to 2 million tonnes of CO2 emissions a year.
So there are many good reasons to encourage them to become greener, and to encourage all of you in your work.
Sustainability in all its forms - economic, social and environmental is vital for the success of the sector - and this applies equally to the university estate.

Responding to climate change represents an exciting opportunity in terms of doing things smarter, in ways that attract staff, students and funding, improve the quality of life and working environments, reduce costs, improve reputations and anticipate future legislation. The role of higher education is rightly very wide ranging - equipping students with the necessary skills, research and knowledge transfer, policy development and playing a leadership role in society's thinking about these issues.
The recent report from Universities UK - Greening Spires, another good title - contains some good examples of what's going on in higher education, even though it also attracted some criticism for not being challenging enough in terms of what the sector can do.

With the large-scale capital investment that we've seen in higher education over the past decade, there's been plenty of new building going on, and there still is. There's also been plenty of building refurbishment, the average cost of which in energy terms is only a fifth of that of new build.
HEFCE published its strategy for sustainable development in higher education in 2005. This defines HEFCE's role as being to support individual institutions and the sector as a whole in meeting the challenge of sustainable development.

This has included: working with the Leadership Foundation to build relevant expertise and awareness in higher education sector leadership; curriculum development; and encouraging good practice in procurement and in capital projects

The strategy is to be reviewed in 2008, together with a draft action plan scheduled for public consultation in May

I'm very pleased that HEFCE have also just agreed to join with the Association of University Directors of Estates in funding a project to develop an environmental assessment methodology for university buildings. This will be developed by May 2009, this will make assessing and improving the environmental performance of construction projects quicker, easier and cheaper.
The Building Research Establishment is working on this and the AUDE has committed £50,000 to it.
And HEFCE has recently announced - with John Denham's support in the 2008 grant letter - its Revolving Green Fund, aimed at cutting universities' greenhouse gas emissions.

The Revolving Green Fund is a partnership between HEFCE and Salix Finance, an independent, publicly funded company, set up in 2004, to accelerate public sector investment in energy saving technologies through invest to save schemes. The final size of fund for the three-year spending period has not yet been set, but it will lie in the £30 to £40 million range.

Implementation proposals are out to consultation and I hope that you are already familiar with them. Intention is the fund should have two strands: an institutional small projects fund; a transformational fund.

The institutional small projects fund will use Salix's traditional model where institutions receive ring-fenced money from the fund.
The transformational fund will be for universities to tackle larger projects which will transform an institution's approach to managing its energy consumption and reducing its emissions. The transformational fund might consider applications in the region of £1-4 million per institution where those institutions will lead the way and act as beacons of good practice for others to appreciate what can be achieved in this area. Institutions may apply for one or more projects which aim to bring about transformational change, which may include adoption of technologies which are new in the UK or the higher education sector.
Each grant that an institution receives will be repayable from the financial savings it makes.

Everything I've mentioned today underlines the importance of the work that you have done, and have still to do. It explains why I've created a bit of a carbon footprint myself by coming all the way to Exeter - by train, as it happens - to applaud what you've achieved and to urge you to still greater efforts.