Case Study: How can a Multi-Academy Trust can deliver carbon & energy reduction targets? - Matt Isherwood, Director, Barker

During his time as Director of Estates for Brooke Weston Trust, Matt Isherwood lead the team that halved the electrical consumption at several of the Trust schools. Starting in 2016, he implemented strategies and tactics which set the Trust “ahead of the curve” with regard to reduction in GHG emissions before the sector really gained interest in the Carbon and sustainability agenda.

Matt, will share how a Multi-Academy Trust can implement their journey to Carbon Zero whilst also taking proactive measures to reduce their exposure to the energy price challenge. Drawing upon over a decade of first-hand experience as an Estates Director and 6 years of pioneering work regarding the impact that investment in renewable technologies can make; Matt will seek to explain the scale of the challenge, the quick-win opportunities everyone can take, and the longer-term strategy options required.

“Many organisations can talk about what to do, Matt has done it and is well placed to share that experience.” Member of The Trust Network.

Creating collaborative and flexible spaces to boost utilisation and contribute to net-zero - Andy Baker-Falkner, Director, Tate+Co, Mary Whittaker, Estates Development Manager, Birkbeck University of London & Nick Coakley, Director of Estates Management and Development, York St. John University

Collaborative spaces have the potential to significantly increase estates utilisation rates and accelerate the path to achieving a net-zero campus. Our talk will provide two recent real-life examples of ways to achieve this. The first project is our Agile Working space for Birkbeck, University of London’s, Professional Services. The second project is our student-focused Creative Centre for York St. John University. Birkbeck, University of London, benefitted from the significant acceleration of agile working over the last 3 years. The rapid transition to remote working and working from home has presented itself as a huge opportunity for Birkbeck and other educational institutions to transform the way they operate. There are challenges in managing this change: dealing with embedded long-held working attitudes, operational constraints as well working with existing buildings. However, the benefits to staff are clear: an improved workspace, healthy and vibrant surroundings and creating a sense of community. There are also critical benefits to the wider institution. We have demonstrated that when done well moving to agile working can improve utilisation, create a central pool for resources and provide a strategy for investment in key buildings whilst jettisoning underperforming ones. York St. John University wanted to create a ‘sticky-campus’, as well as new student facing facilities and collaborative space, both structured and unstructured. The result was the Creative Centre, a low-carbon new building in the centre of the campus. The civic heart of the building is the atrium, which acts as a mixing valve for students and staff across all departments. This unprogrammed ‘third-space’ is invaluable to the university, and always occupied. Critically this is not one large space, but a series of smaller ‘rooms’.