Sustainability

Our Green Credentials

As you would expect in a modern educational building, great care has been taken in the design to ensure that the building meets demanding environmental and sustainability requirements. Some of the features incorporated include:

• Rainwater harvesting – enabling stored rainwater to be reused
• A green roof using sedum plants to insulate, absorb rainwater and encourage biodiversity
• Cooling through chilled beams and natural ventilation

Sustainable Futures

As a values-driven organisation, we recognise we have a central role in creating a sustainable future, which meets the needs of the present without compromising future generations. Orbital South Colleges seeks to offer the highest quality experiences to its staff, students and employers while using our resources in an effective and efficient manner from the curriculum we deliver to the carbon footprint of our campuses. This is why we have signed up to the Colleges’ Sustainability Charter. We recognise we have a duty to develop students who are more environmentally aware and are able to make informed choices. We also work with employers to ‘green up’ our curriculum, develop more training linked to green technologies and ensure sustainability features within all our courses. Here are a few examples below:

The College has built cycling racks for students to store their bikes if they would prefer to cycle than use public transport.	The Science department wash & reuse their glass beakers and tubes used in science experiments. They also collect and recycle old batteries.

Greentech

We believe in climate-friendly education to ensure a sustainable future for our students and our communities. As the UK endeavours to become a net zero economy by 2050, the transition to a green economy requires a workforce with the right skills. This requires a greater focus on emerging low-carbon industries, environmental goods and supplying an increased demand for sustainable construction and infrastructures.

We recognise that our role lies in not just embedding climate-friendly principles in our own buildings, staff and students but also equipping the workforce of the future with the skills to take advantage of the opportunities presented by Greentech industries, from the technical skills to install, manage and repair ground source heat pumps to the construction skills needed to retrofit buildings to make them more sustainable.