Winners of the Harris Green Award: Harris Academy Clapham

As a forward-thinking organisation, the Harris Federation embeds environmental consciousness into our values, ways of working, and the education that we provide to our students. 

At the recent awards ceremony at our staff conference, Harris Academy Clapham was a winner of the Harris Green Award. Assistant Principal, Jeremy Linton and Harris Federation Green Coordinator, Anna Orridge discuss the measures taken at the academy to save money and cut carbon emissions. 

Maintaining energy efficiencies

At the academy, all corridor and classroom lights are connected to motion sensors to ensure that they are not left on unnecessarily. They also have motion detectors in all toilets to avoid water waste from leaks when the building is not occupied.

On the roof of the building is a roof-top solar array as well as three air handling units which heat air entering the building using heat from air leaving the building. The Building Management System (BMS) is set to a strict schedule to ensure services such as ventilation and hot water are only used when students, staff and lettings are in the building. With lettings, they utilise zoning to ensure that only the parts of the site in use are lit and heated. 

Through these efficiency measures, Harris Academy Clapham have managed to lower their electricity baseload by 12.5%, achieving a saving of over £6,000 so far in 2023, compared to 2022 when there were 200 fewer students on site!

There are also temperature and carbon dioxide monitors in each classroom so the heating and cooling in each room is managed individually, which ensures that waste is kept to a minimum. 

The academy also operate a 7pm IT shutdown. And in staffrooms, water heaters rather than kettles are in operation, which are turned off during the holidays. All photocopiers and printers are A rated and these are also turned off during school holidays.

Other sustainability measures

Clapham is also in the process of piloting the use of 100% recycled paper for printing and photocopying, which as well as being greener, is also cheaper.

They are pushing to recycle more too, and currently recycle paper, plastic and tin, as well as having food waste collected. 

Their next intention is to be able to find a cleaning company that adheres to the highest standards, using both non-toxic and sustainable products.

Top tip from Jeremy

Jeremy recommends that all school business managers check that meters are checked against the bills, "It is possible that your supplier is estimating your usage rather than taking readings". This was the case at Clapham, and the academy managed to recover a significant amount of money.  

Thank you to Jermey and Anna for sharing their sustainability experiences from Harris Academy Clapham. Follow us for more insights across the Federation about how we are taking strides to cultivate eco-friendly attitudes and practices within the education sector.