At the Lewis School, we’ve been taking steps to reduce our impact on the environment. Here are some of the things we’ve been doing.
Reducing printing
We now use less paper. Our online courses are entirely paperless, and for our adult face-to-face courses, we’ve reduced paper use by creating an online study area where students can access lesson material, homework tasks and the syllabus in digital form.
Our marketing staff have also reduced their paper consumption. We no longer produce printed brochures – they are only available in PDF format (click here to see them!) and we don’t advertise using direct mailing – we use e-newsletters and other digital marketing channels instead.
We’ve even reduced the number of photocopiers in our building!
Reducing electricity consumption
All the lighting in our school building uses energy-efficient LED bulbs. Lights in common areas such as corridors are controlled by a sensor, and the external lights at the front of our building are controlled by a timer. This has helped us to reduce energy consumption as the lights are only on when they are needed.
Reducing heat loss
Our school consists of four listed buildings (they’re over 200 years old!) so we’re limited as to the changes we can make to the building; however, we’ve recently installed secondary glazing to reduce noise pollution and heat loss.
Reducing water consumption
In our garden, water butts collect rainwater from our pergola roof, while in our school building, we have two toilets that recycle basin water for use in flushing.
Reducing car emissions
Online teachers and non-customer-facing staff have the option to work from home. Bicycle parking is available for students and staff, and our director, Alistair, has an electric car (you may see him charging it at the school!).
Recycling
There are recycling bins throughout the school and signs to explain what you can put in them. Paper, glass and plastic bottles are all recycled. In our offices, we reuse scrap paper and recycle all other paper waste.
Green energy and products
We use eco-friendly cleaning products and our electricity supplier is a certified green provider, Ecotricity, which gets 100% of its electricity from renewable sources such as window, water and solar power.
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