Business learners have been given a rare all-access tour of our campus to see how our recent sustainability initiatives have been utilised.

In support of the College’s commitment to the environment, and in keeping with our Unmissable January theme, Level 2 learners from our Business and Management course have undertaken a guided tour to understand the impact of eco-friendly enhancements to our College campus. This involved reviewing the strategies already in place through an inspection, assessing their effectiveness and identifying areas for further improvement in the future.

Among the key features of the tour were the solar panels across E block and F block, the EV chargers in the car park supporting the electrical vehicle transition and the spacious green ‘lawn’ roof on G block ensuring that the footprint of the building isn’t reducing the total amount of grass space. This roof also serves as a rainwater harvester, funnelling water down into a large tank that is sterilised through a UV lamp and used to flush toilets in the building. Another important development on show was the replacement of three large boilers that generated heating across campus with twenty smaller boilers that are more energy efficient and can fine tune energy usage to ensure that the system will never operate more boilers than required.

Harvey Seymour, Premises and Estates Assistant at Eastleigh College, led the group on the guided tour around campus and commented: “It has become increasingly important for businesses to strengthen their sustainability practices and bolster environmental awareness within their organisations. These tours help transfer this key information to our future workforces and helps grow our sustainability message.”

Angela Horn, Business Tutor at Eastleigh College, commented: “This has been an invaluable learning experience for our learners and events like this can really help them to understand the positive changes that can be made in the workplace and the impact these changes can have on our day to day lives”.

Many of our sustainability enhancements have been made possible through dedicated funding, most recently with Salix finance through the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. In the past year, we also became the first further education provider in the country to partner with IEMA to enable greener skills provision. We were further delighted to win the Gold award for Sustainability in Marketing in the 2022 FE First Awards, reflecting our strong commitment to sustainability reform in the way we work.

For further information, please contact the College at BeBetter@eastleigh.ac.uk.