Platinum prize in Green Impact awards

National Star has achieved a prestigious platinum award for Green Impact in recognition of our sustainability efforts. The initiative is in place nationally to encourage educational establishments such as ours to be more environmentally friendly through everyday actions.

‘National Star has worked hard as a community to reduce the charity’s environmental impact and we are delighted to win this award, which was a true collaborative effort,’ said Hugh Piggott, who co-ordinated the award submission.

‘We’re grateful to the Green Group for driving engagement amongst staff and students with the initiative,’ he added.

A new sustainability map, showing the woodlands, walks and environmentally friendly initiatives around Ullenwood for staff and students, is due to be launched in the autumn.

Being sustainable has played a key role in the development of our new specialist student accommodation at Ullenwood, due to be completed by summer 2023.

Our measures include:

• Mitigating the impact of the high heating requirements for our residents by using a sustainable design for the buildings that’s highly energy efficient.
• Building natural ventilation into the rooms, helping with cooling when seasonally required.
• Mounting PV and solar panels onto the roofs to generate electricity and hot water.
• Using green roofs to collect rainwater.
• Using the college’s existing district heating system, which is powered by a biomass boiler.
• Building large overhangs onto the roofs to mitigate excessive solar gain.
• Harvesting rainwater for irrigation of the area around the accommodation.

Wildlife and biodiversity

• Sensitive lighting will help protect the brown long-eared bats and myotis bats that are either roosting on the site or like to visit us.
• Small gaps will be left at the base of all fences, walls and boundaries to allow hedgehogs safe passage across site when they need it. We’re proud to be a Hedgehog Friendly campus!
• Two bird nesting boxes will be installed on mature trees near the paddock.

We will continue to promote the principals adopted for Green Impact. There will be a renewed focus on energy saving, looking at Solar PV installations on some of our existing buildings. We also plan to introduce localised electricity metering to better inform staff and students of the costs associated with their area and will explore the opportunity to set targets for consumption reduction in specific areas.