Energy-efficient, climate-resilient schools sit at the intersection of two of Labour’s five missions for government: transforming the UK into a clean energy superpower and breaking down barriers to opportunity for every child.
The missions of the new UK Government draw on the call for the need for mission-oriented innovation policy from Mariana Mazzucato – Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London.
Education buildings in the UK represent a substantial portion of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, contributing 37% of total public sector building emissions. According to the Department for Education (DfE), the energy expenditure associated with these buildings amounted to £1.8 billion in 2023.[1] With school budgets over-stretched, these cost-savings could be pivotal in breaking down barriers to opportunity for every child.
For children to reach their full potential, they need to be learning in safe, climate-resilient schools – with resources and funding available to ensure there is opportunity for all. Decarbonising schools can play a critical role in ensuring this by reducing costs from energy expenditure, to reinvest into educating students.
Ashden has partnered The Green Finance Institute (GFI) to support UK schools to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030. Ashden is a leading climate solutions charity accelerating transformative climate solutions in the UK, with a particular focus on sustainable energy and development. By leveraging the combined strengths of the GFI – with its pragmatic approach to mobilising capital into real-economy solutions – and Ashden, their joint ‘Innovative Financing’ project aims to accelerate the transition to zero-carbon school environments.
The need for private investment
Financing education buildings is a highly complex environment – even without the added challenge of a £2 billion per year funding gap to decarbonise them. Schools are funded directly by the government, to cover the cost of delivering education and maintain schools, and different types of schools receive funding in different ways. They also face borrowing restrictions, preventing them from accessing repayable finance. This is compounded by the reality that they are already facing significant funding and resource constraints, and in most instances won’t have the expertise to work with third parties to access alternative forms of finance in this complicated environment.
The confluence of these various elements means that the ways in which schools could pay for decarbonisation is extremely limited at the moment, and due to focuses elsewhere, is not top of the priority list.
Private finance could play a significant role in filling this £2 billion per year finance gap, if done in an appropriate way. Altering the landscape to enable private investment could be pivotal, but can’t be at the expense of investing in education or paying teaching and maintenance staff appropriately to ensure that student education remains the priority.
Ashden and The GFI have developed a series of initial recommendations to assist schools on their decarbonisation journey. These include:
- Calling on the UK Government to remove legislative barriers and clear up the policy on borrowing for schools, creating an appropriate, enabling environment for repayable finance.
- An impartial, quality-controlled technical advice service to work in tandem with funding, allowing for schools to deliver decarbonisation effectively.
These could enable schools to move forward quickly and with confidence on simple, low risk, high impact decarbonisation measures such as building management controls, LED lighting, and rooftop solar PV. Energy savings from these measures could be reinvested alongside building confidence and trust in the supply chain.
In conclusion, despite a complex environment, schools could be a beacon of public sector decarbonisation if private finance can be mobilised appropriately. Offering long-term potential for public sector savings, and the opportunity to boost the resilience of schools to a changing climate – decarbonising schools has a significant role to play in delivering the government’s missions to transform the UK into a clean energy superpower and break down barriers to opportunity for every child.
For more information about the GFI-Ashden Innovative Finance collaboration go yma
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