Sustainability Report 2024
March 2025
In recent years, the College, together with our suppliers and other key stakeholders, has made significant progress in our mission to make Marlborough more environmentally sustainable. Whilst centrally driven projects have made a difference, it is powerful to see the increase in awareness amongst pupils and staff and the responsibility taken by everyone in this community to support a more sustainable carbon footprint; whether this is by reducing food waste in Norwood Hall, using re-usable water bottles and coffee cups, or making simple energy and water saving decisions.
As a result of our collective actions, we are delighted to report that Our ESOS Energy saving opportunities from Phase 1 & 2 have confirmed that we have reduced our energy consumption, mainly on electricity, by over 800,000 kw – which is enough to boil at least 250,000 kettles.
The
River Kennet Habitat Enhancement project
We are one of the few school campuses to have a chalk stream, the River Kennet, running through it and we fully recognise the importance of our conservation responsibilities to the river. Chalk streams and their surrounding habitat are of high nature conservation interest and are sometimes called ‘England’s rainforests’ to reflect their unique contribution to global ecology.
In 2024, we completed the Habitat Enhancement project, restoring the in-stream habitat of the lower section of the river for the benefit of wild trout and the wider ecology of the river. The work has included areas of bank regrading to create a two stage channel to enhance marginal diversity and improve channel sinuosity, alongside the use of large woody material to help narrow the channel, increase sinuosity and provide in-stream cover and diversity.
We are now assessing further works on the upper section of the river to assess the impact of the weir at Fox’s bridge.
Solar Panel Installation
The College already has 500 solar panel units on buildings across the campus and we are constantly looking for additional location opportunities alongside planned works. In the next phase, the plan is to install solar panel to the Ellis Theatre in April 2025 and we have identified four other projects including the Boarding House refurbishment of C2 for future assessment.
The introduction of eco-friendly cleaning products
Over the course of the last year, we have made the transition to eco-friendly cleaning products across our houses.
This has delivered some impressive savings due to the reduction in the number of products being used, local production and supply, the use of pouches to mix on site which are lighter and take up less space than the previous 5 litre drums, the non-energy intensive production process and the use of recycled packaging which is also recyclable.
Below are the stats after the initial year of use:
96% transport saving
25% reduction in lines stocked
82% plastic reduction
93% carbon reduction
85% storage reduction
Forward Plan
Our ESOS Phase 3 Plan, which will run from September 2024 to September 2025, remains focused on energy management and will help build a heating and cooling strategy for all College buildings to maximise efficiencies.
A full report will be made on this work in the next annual report.
