Cambridge colleges move closer to net zero: St Catharine’s College
Sustainability works at St Catharine’s College will support providing comfort and warmth for students at popular accommodation blocks.
Located in the east of England, Cambridge is a renowned university city and home to the world-famous University of Cambridge. Founded in 1209, today this historic university comprises 31 colleges.
Our team was on the ground in Cambridge to visit three of the colleges – Gonville and Caius, St Catharine’s and Peterhouse. They are paving the way toward a more sustainable future thanks to projects enabled through government funding.
Zoe Naylor, our client support officer, who has been working with these colleges, said: “It was fantastic to visit the sites and to see how these three colleges are progressing against their net zero aims.
“Each college estate requires a unique and tailored approach when it comes to decarbonisation. It was great to meet with the passionate people driving these trailblazing schemes.”
We were on site to meet with college representatives, see project progress and discuss the opportunities and challenges faced by each organisation on the journey to net zero.
St Catharine’s College (known as Catz)
Founded in 1473, St Catharine’s College supports an academic community of approximately 1,000. Located in the heart of the city, the college has previously announced an ambition to reach net zero by 2040. Among actionable steps that the St Catharine’s community has identified, it will need to take to reach this target is fabric, energy and heating upgrades across its estate.
To progress these steps, the college has undertaken a project to replace old fossil-fuel boilers used to heat student accommodation located on Russell Street.
To support the works, it was awarded £166,367 in funding through Phase 3c of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. We deliver funding for this scheme on behalf of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
The project is expected to reduce the college’s carbon footprint by 25.9 tonnes of carbon annually. A 25.9 tonne reduction of carbon emissions is equivalent to 12,950 miles of per-passenger air travel, which could get you from London to Lisbon 13 times*.
We were on site with college head of buildings and maintenance Mel Kydd to see the works, which are nearing completion.
Zoe said: “Alongside contributing to its carbon reduction targets, the works will also ensure that students can remain content in the knowledge that their rooms will be heated as normal with minimal environmental impact.”
Helen Hayward, operations director at St Catharine’s College, commented: “The support from Salix and the funding have been instrumental in enabling us to continue on our journey towards decarbonisation.”
Read the news story about proposed changes to the works at Gonville and Caius College and keep an eye on the news area of our website as we celebrate project progress at Peterhouse.
The support from Salix and the funding have been instrumental in enabling us to continue on our journey towards decarbonisation.
* Carbon calculations have been generated through a tool created by our carbon and technical experts here at Salix. The intention is to provide carbon savings estimates to aid with a common understanding of emission data and statistics. These estimates are approximate; it is not recommended to use this tool for formal carbon emissions analysis. The tool uses UK government conversion factors alongside emissions estimates sourced from various studies, but it is possible a margin of error may exist. For more information about the formulas and justifications used in this tool, please contact us at [email protected].