|

The RIBA Schools Client Forum hosted a half day seminar exploring sustainable building design. With a series of case studies and recognised speakers, the event highlighted methods of achieving carbon reduction in schools.

The following key issues where identified:

• primary schools have an important role in educating the next generation, and the local community, to understand sustainability- particularly supporting vulnerable families who may only connect with local support and facilities. Are we systematically measuring the impact on the community?
• partnerships with international schools can provide excellent learning on building operation as well as cultural experiences
• "make children part of the journey"
• gas consumption (heating, cooking) is being well improved by building improvements, electricity consumption needs to be the focus-increasing ICT outside the scope of the design team is a concern
• BREEAM- new manual available to download/ "in use"- should we be assessing all schools and using it in decision making? We all need evidence of performance
• how do we inspire people to achieve sustainable schools- in design and operation?
• we need to share what works and what doesn't work
• we need to find a standard way of integrating sustainability into the design process- from pre-procurement to operation
• we have a lot to learn from the schools themselves