Govtoday is proud to present our 2nd Annual National Greening the FE & HE Sectors Conference and Exhibition: Promoting Environmental, Economic and Social Sustainability, to be held on Wednesday 30th May 2012.

The Government has announced its top priority as growth, reinforcing its ‘Greenest ever Government’ commitment, and pledging to focus on sustainable growth that is both balanced and shared.

Key to reaffirming the requirement for sustainable growth was the realisation of the important role education plays in recovery. In November 2010, The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills published the ‘Skills for Sustainable Growth’ Strategy Document, which demonstrated that skills are vital to our future, and that improving skills is essential to building stronger communities.

In light of the Sustainable Growth Agenda, the Further and Higher Education Sectors have been placed in the unique position of playing a leading role in the development of change, embedding sustainability within the heart of education and implementing the sustainable skills required for the transition to a low carbon economy.

The Climate Change Act of 2008 set the world’s first long-term legally binding targets for a 34 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020, and an 80 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, against a 1990 baseline, and has created many challenges. The creation of sustainable growth must begin at ground level, teaching tomorrow’s leaders to adopt sustainable practices within institutions that exemplify sustainability.

The challenge facing the FE and HE sectors is the creation of state of the art facilities that infuse sustainable education and operations. Current figures state that 40 per cent of the Further Education Estate was constructed between 1960 and 1979. Constraints to funding through the 1980s created a massive backlog in maintenance work, with 50 per cent or more of college estates falling into very poor or dangerous conditions.

The scale of the challenge is replicated within the Higher Education Estate, which covers a gross internal area of nearly 26 million m2 of space, with an insurance replacement value of over £60 billion. Total revenue property costs are £2.3 billion per annum, of which £736 million is spent on maintenance.

Furthermore, with reductions in capital funding, the process of securing sustainable skills for the future will be challenging. Greening the FE & HE Sectors: Promoting Environmental, Economic and Social Sustainability will examine the direction in which Further and Higher Education Institutions must proceed in order to provide state of the art facilities that not only reduce environmental impacts but deliver the requirements of sustainable economic growth.