Charterhouse School is keen to promote a low-carbon agenda. This has become an important issue nationally and within the school. Charterhouse pupils have launched their own action plan to make the school more sustainable, ranging from a greater emphasis on sustainability in the school’s strategic plans, to a number of more immediate suggestions. Everyone is keen to take whatever steps are necessary to reduce carbon emissions: there are clear educational, moral, and financial arguments for doing so.

The school has hired ReEnergise to help in this endeavour. Together, studies have been carried out to identify the best opportunities for the school, creating a comprehensive index of potential money and carbon saving projects, ranked by cost versus benefit and full of useful advice on each option.

Work has begun on replacing lights with LEDs, reducing the power demand of the site and in March 2019 we completed the installation of 230kW solar PV on the roofs of the Queen’s Sports Centre (QSC) and Fletcherites New. These buildings were chosen as ideal sites for generating electricity using Solar PV. They have a high, steady usage of electricity and unlike some parts of the school, demand continues during July and August when solar power generation is greatest. The QSC was relatively recently built and has a combination of flat metal roof and sloping tiled roofs orientated to the South, East and West – ideal for solar power. It will significantly reduce the school estate’s carbon emissions by reducing its reliance on grid electricity.

230kW of solar power saves around 70 tonnes of CO₂ per annum.