Part of Alban City’s mission is to ‘provide an environment that puts children’s needs at the top of the agenda’. We see that in its widest sense. We want the school to be a sustainable and responsible citizen within our environment. The school has created a Grove, where parents, pupils and friends of the school can make donations that result in the planting of trees, contributing to the rewilding of the Caledonian Forest. In doing so we aim to help address the climate crisis, provide habitat for native wildlife, and to offset the school’s consumption with a target of having a carbon negative impact on the environment.

Next Target: 300 Trees.

Reason for this target:

In moving to Green Energy suppliers (selecting only 100% renewable electricity suppliers), the school is carbon neutral for our electricity usage. However, we still use natural gas. We benchmarked our usage in 2019 and calculated that our Gas usage resulted in an estimated CO2 release of 15 tonnes for the year. Trees for Life calculate planting four trees to offset one tonne of CO2 release, therefore 60 Trees will offset our Gas usage last year.

Having offset 3 years of emissions already we're now working towards offsetting a fourth year but want to set a stretch target of quickly getting to 300 (or 5 years offset). Over time we'll aim to introduce new targets that reflect our wider and historic emissions, for example, through trips/travel, historic gas emissions and electricity consumption before moving to a renewable only provider. The Eco Committee can work to consider our total and historic emissions and help us calculate the offset needed to be fully carbon negative from inception. We will be able to update on their conclusions here.