North Yorkshire schools face carbon-footprint ranking

March 4th 2010

Schools in North Yorkshire could soon be ranked according to their carbon efficiency, in a new drive to encourage schools to ‘think green’.

The region has 82 schools and they account for a massive 45 per cent of the council’s total energy consumption. Now, the council is devising plans to increase energy efficiency in schools. The council’s Economic Development and Corporate Issues Scrutiny Panel discussed options on Monday.

Cabinet member for highways and planning, Cllr Bernard Regan, said, “as a council we use a variety of energy and to reduce our carbon-footprint and that of all of the residents in North Lincolnshire will be a hard task.”

He continued, "we need to look closely at all of our activities and 45 per cent of our energy is used by schools so we must encourage more heads, staff and pupils to think about environmental issues.”

One of the options put forward at the meeting was to publish each school’s carbon footprint, in order to make them think about ways to reduce this, to compete with other schools in the region.

Regan concluded, "as a planet we are producing five times as much as the earth can handle due to industrialisation and something urgently needs to be done about it."