The Commons Education and Skills Committee has warned the Government that it will need to increase capital spending on schools, offsetable against lower revenue costs, to make significant carbon savings from schools.

The Committee’s report on the Government’s 15-year, £45bn Building Schools for the Future project welcomes delays to the early part of the project if these allow more time to plan and more local authority involvement. It urges too more evaluation of the risks inherent on PFI projects and their effect on long-term spending.

A central part of the report concerns
sustainability of buildings which produce 2% of UK emissions and 15% of the public sector’s. The MPs criticised the BREEAM Schools rating presently used contains no vision for sustainable schools and is inadequate as a means of reducing carbon emissions. Witnesses said making new schools carbon neutral would add 15-20% to the cost although this would reduce
over time.

They accepted that funding should be provided for reducing footprints on a cost per pupil rather than a cost per square metre basis to encourage innovation and they were critical of Government thinking that part of carbon reduction could be achieved by offsetting and recommended that the proportion be specified.

The Committee also recommends:-

• greater flexibility on building standards to allow local authorities room for innovation;
• publication of actions in response to the Sustainable Procurement Taskforce report;
• consideration of the cost of using 30% recycle material.

The Committee said methods of teaching and learning need to evolve too but there is no straightforward answer to how, although pupil involvement can be a useful source of innovation, however. There was also considerable debate on whether sprinklers should be incorporated in schools.

Liberal Democrat MP Paul Holmes, a Committee member, said the report condemns the Government’s failure to use its £45bn programme to produce environmentally sustainable schools. He said it is failing to make environmental sustainability a central focus of the largest wave of school building since the 1960s.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmeduski/140/14008.htm#a28