We have a call to action for all colleagues to support achievement of our targets whilst crucially using our influence to raise awareness among students and our wider college community. There is much to do to continue the pace of progress, with current and recent initiatives underway to raise awareness including:
- Leading by example in declaring a climate emergency, publishing progress against targets and adopting the FE Climate Action Roadmap
- Investing £6m in Decarbonisation replacing building elements and gas boilers with Heat Pumps ensuring carbon savings of 290 tonnes annually
- Installing near 1,000 Solar PV panels across our main two campuses
- Launching our substantial Net Zero and Renewables Centre in 2024, supporting training in 6 low carbon technologies
- Operating an Electric Vehicle Charging Station and replacing all diesel pool cars with electric
- Downsizing the number of corridor printers on site and moving to a cold print solution to reduce energy consumption by 70%
- Upgrading the Colchester data centre including replacing core switch, back-up systems and air conditioning units to save energy
- Enabling auto-off scripts that run at 6pm every night to ensure PC’s, AV systems and Printers turn off to reduce residual consumption
- Delivering on 55 actions of the original ’50-point plan for Energy Reduction’ first identified in 2022. 26 more are still work in progress.
- Mapping UN Sustainable Development Goals to our core curriculum and bringing forward new green skills curricula, including through our new Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Training Centre in planning for 2026 delivery.
Read our new Environmental and Sustainability Strategy below which was launched on 24 October 2025. This describes our plans to support nature restoration alongside further carbon reduction initiatives to help increase awareness and support preservation of the environment for future generations.
