E045 - Alan Donnachie from Regents University London

Alan, thank you very much for coming on the Green Element Podcast. We've been working with each other for— I was just trying to work it out— 10 years?

It must be coming up for that, I guess.

Let's round it around. And over that time period, we've seen so much change at Regions. Could you tell us a bit about Regent's? Because you're actually a kind of a business, aren't you, and a university, so you're a private university, so you run differently to other universities. Can you tell us a bit about who you are and a bit about the university?

Regent's University London, to give us a proper title, has been a place of learning on this site for about 100 years, maybe slightly more. But you're right, we are a private university, one of only a small handful in the UK. Regent's actually started— it's a fantastic story— it started off as Bedford College. Bedford College was the first college in the UK, or England certainly, to offer degree-level education to women. It started in the late 19th century by the Sisters Reed. It took its name from Bedford Square in London where the sisters were brought up. And by a rich benefactor, they've got some space here in Regent's Park and they developed Bedford College and now Regent's University London as we know. We've got an international student base, we've got over 140 nationalities I think it is represented at the university.

Wow.

So we're a very internationally focused business, many of our courses address international business needs. Many of our students are from families across the world who own, manage, and run their own businesses, and their children, their students at Regent's, will probably in most cases go on to develop and join those family businesses across the world. And actually, Regent's is very much built on relationships. There is a piece that says once you come along to Regent's and study here, you're part of the Regent's family for forever, I suppose. And indeed, now a lot of our alumni still come back 20, 30, 40 years after they studied here.

Really?

So we're very much a family-based university, if you like. We're in central London, Regent's Park. We've got about 12 acres on the south side of the park. But actually, when you're here, you could be anywhere. It's very countrified, it's very beautiful, it's very peaceful, it's very calm altogether. It's an absolutely fantastic site that you would never imagine you were less than a few hundred yards from the hustle and bustle of—

But equally, that's got its ramifications, hasn't it? Being in the park, you've got constraints on buildings and double, you know, triple glazing and stuff.

Oh, we have, yes.

And so therefore, yes, and that's— and that I have found really interesting in watching how you've tried to green up the university with your hands almost tied behind your back in some respects.

That's a fair comment, and one thing I must say is that the university itself is— we don't own these buildings unfortunately, they're part of the Crown Estate. So we do have quite a long lease and we've been here, as I said before, for quite a long time. Now because we're part of the Crown Estate and because we're within a royal park, we probably have more challenges and constraints placed upon us than many other similar university sites around the UK. That has its challenges and, dare I say, its problems, but on the other hand, it is actually a benefit because it means that we are responsible for maintaining and developing the heritage, the culture, the quality, the beauty of the site. So everything we do must have a very, very close eye on it with regard to how we look after the site, our responsibilities to look after the site. In practical terms, that means we can't just go around replacing doors, replacing windows, adding systems, adding equipment and so forth, and indeed changing any of the sort of the gardens around here. They are controlled to an extent by Royal Parks, so we have to be very careful about everything we do. When I first came to Regent's 6 years ago, like everybody that comes to Regent's, absolutely overwhelmed by the—

It's gonna be 6 years that we've been working together then.

Is it 6 years?

If you've been here since—

Oh right, we didn't meet before. I just wondered where you were, Will, before that. But anyway, yeah, when I came to Regent's many years ago, I was overwhelmed by the quality, the beauty, and the layout of the place. It was just fantastic to find something like this in London. Once I got my feet firmly under the table, it was very clear that we were doing some really good stuff and we had some very, very satisfied students and conference visitors attending, especially conferences through the summer and weekends, etc.

Right.

So that was good, but nobody really knew what our impact was, an environmental impact. Nobody really knew what we were using and how we were delivering and so forth. And if there had been failures in any time before, There was always a tendency to switch things on to be running 24/7. So it would just go into hand, as they call it in the trade, and the kit would run just constantly. And nobody really, I wouldn't say nobody cared, 'cause I think that's wrong, but I don't think anybody actually appreciated the impact of running a site quite like that.

Mm-hmm.

So one of the first things that I knew we had to do was to try and get a grip on where we were, trying to form a baseline of actually what we were producing in terms of energy use, carbon emission, and of course money, because it costs money to run all these things, and it does come back down to money usually at the end of the day when you're speaking to finance directors and, and the like. So the first thing we wanted to do was implement a building management system. or a building environmental management system. Now, this was a huge task, an absolutely enormous task, because we had some bits, but to be fair, they never really worked.

Hmm.

We really couldn't use them or access the information or indeed run anything. So there was a case then that I went out and spoke to some colleagues working at other universities and said, well, what's the best way to approach this? And I was given some great advice, and included in that advice was a couple of organizations who were installing BMS systems, and one in particular, Carbon Numbers/Ecosystems. They had done some, some really good work with Essex University.

Right.

And a couple of inner London universities, as well as some very high-end financial businesses. So I contacted them, had a conversation, and they, they could see the opportunity for them as a business, but equally they could see an opportunity for them to help regions develop and grow and implement some really good, good systems and processes to measure what it was we were actually doing. And by the result of doing that, we actually started to identify once we put the BMS system in, because we were trying to run the things smart and joined up, we actually started, and this was a bit of a surprise, we actually started to highlight where things weren't working.

Right.

Where there was failure and nobody had either noticed it or maybe somebody had noticed it, but nothing had been done about it. So actually, it was really useful from that point of view. We also identified a number of items which might be considered, I suppose, as backlog maintenance. Not backlog maintenance that just hadn't been done, but backlog maintenance that people had thought, oh, maybe too difficult, don't want to go there, don't have the time. Money was thankfully at Regent's not a significant issue because the university is very committed in investing in The future of the university. So we were able to tie a couple of things in, things like LED-controlled lighting, something that we didn't have before, but we've only for the last— actually, in fact, we've just this minute changed out some lighting we fitted nearly 6 years ago.

Wow.

Because it's coming to the end of its life, its life cycle. So we've taken these lights out that we fitted nearly 6 years ago, put some new ones in, really lifted the area. But the benefit is we've taken the old lights out and fitted these lights into areas that are used less frequently.

Right.

So the LED lighting are perfectly suitable for cleaners' cupboards, storage areas, some areas where we have in our library that are fairly low use by 1 or 2 students, and the lights are perfectly acceptable. So by actually replacing that cycle of replacement, we're considering all the time, well, let's not throw these LED lights away because they're not completely spent.

That's right.

And let's make, you know, make use of them. So that's worked out quite well. We've also looked at running heating under controlled conditions, you know, saying, well, let's take a temperature sensor, let's find out what's happening in that area. Hold on, there's 200-300 students in that area, we don't really need much heating because there's enough heat in there already. So let's put the heating off, or let's look at the outside temperature. How's it doing today? Do we need to bring the heating on an hour earlier or leave it off an hour? And things like that. The one area we had a real issue with was our residential accommodation. We're a bit unusual here at Regent's because we have about 230 beds.

Right.

With probably around 150 rooms. So from that, you work out that we actually have a number of rooms where we have dormitory-style accommodation.

Right.

And what was happening there was that with many international students coming from very much warmer climates, they were really struggling when they came over here because the buildings were cold, and we were forced virtually to have our heating on 24/7. Now, we don't have the level of sophistication to maintain adequate temperature of 21, 22 degrees C. We just have to put it on and let the students be become really hot and cool down by opening windows.

Right.

Even in the middle of winter, which was really frustrating. However, last year what we did, we cleaned the whole system down, cleaned it through, and every new— every radiator had a new thermostatic control valve, and we put some new valve controls, zonal controls, into the building. So we're now able to allow students to, if they are too warm, to put their heating down a bit. And we are actually able to control in detailed fashion when we want heating on and when we want it off. Now, we do that with outside temperature, with the occupancy of the space. We also try to shut the heating off for at least 3 to 4 hours per 24 hours.

Right.

Through the night, when they should all be tucked up safely in bed. Not always the case, but we do try. That at least. One of the biggest challenges we do have though is, um, being a Grade II listed building, um, the, uh, the windows, um, have been repaired and painted to an inch of their life over the last number of years, and they really are in poor condition.

Right.

They're not in good condition. Single-glazed timber, badly fitting, drafts. These are the things we have to deal with. Now, I actually started my life as a joiner, so I've actually made windows.

Right.

I've fitted windows, so I know a wee bit about windows. And the last thing I'd ever want to do is to rip out a window and put some blooming awful looking plastic or metal plastic covered replacement. I think it's just wrong, notwithstanding the fact it is a listed building. We have to, we have to, we have to conform with Westminster City Council planning regulations, historical buildings, etc. And that's given us a bit of a challenge because with, with really old windows, it's very difficult to make them good. It's easy to change them and put some draught proofing, and everybody stands back and thinks, oh, marvelous, what a great job we've done. Personally, I think it's money not well spent.

Yeah.

I think you really need to have to tackle these things Properly. So at the moment, we're working with some architects, and my preference is to change the windows with new timber windows, exactly the same.

Right.

No difference in the configuration, the setup of the window. I think that's a responsibility that we have to, to, to take on board, with double-glazed sealed units. and using quality sustainable timber, using highest quality paints, preparation techniques, preservation techniques, and so on, so that we actually can stand back and say, well, they're not the same windows that were there, but actually they're, there is, they're better. But they're still timber, they still look exactly the same, but actually the draft proofing and the application of draft proofing is of the very highest standards. undertaken in a workshop. You can't get any better.

Yeah.

And hopefully once our architects have, um, have addressed all the, the, the, the T's and dotted all the I's, then we should be able to go back to the council and see how we do. Running on from that, we have other buildings which are not listed, but they are old, although most of them at one time I suppose were damaged by bomb damage during the Second World War. They have the traditional Crittal-type windows, single-glazed, and again they are in poor condition. Most of the windows have twisted a little bit, catch is broken, hinge is broken, difficult and challenging to repair because it's not— obviously it's not carpenter, but you need very specialist skills. particularly if you expect them to come onto site and actually do the repair on site. So at the moment, we're looking at that and we're saying, well, maybe the right thing might be to do is to replace them using a typical Crittal design, very much in the same configurations we've got, putting double-glazed panels in there, new handles, new hinges, etc., etc., where we would actually improve the U-value of the whole building envelope. significantly without, you know, it would just, just be incredible, uh, the difference that that would make. And we have worked with Westminster Council, and I have to say they've been very positive towards our ideas. We've done a pre-application process and have been very supportive, and they've even helped us to consider some further technologies, renewable technologies. They haven't said, oh, let's do it and you can do it, there's no problem, but in our application process they've suggested, well, why don't you block out some areas for inclusion of renewable technologies. So we've done that. It's probably a couple years away, but we have done that. The other thing we've done to try and appease or satisfy the authorities, we have a slightly newer building completed in the '50s known as Jeb Building, where they had really old— sorry, not really old, but certainly Crittenden windows which were in poor condition. We've replaced them. with steel windows with PVCU covering finish, and we did that to demonstrate that we could have windows made to match the precise configuration of the old windows, to try and demonstrate to the council that Regents are not here to change and mess around with the historical, the heritage, the look of what Regent's is. And to be fair, I think the council recognise that now because we have spent slightly more than maybe you would have had to spend if you just replaced the windows. So I think they recognise that Regent's is quite keen to do the right thing. One of the things that we've found with that, and it's a really good learning point, we have actually created conditions within our Jebb building Which means even in the height of the winter, we can shut the heating off.

Right.

Because the windows are so effective that, providing they get that little bit of morning sun, you know, just the sun's quite low, but it just takes the chill off the space. And sometimes the heating will come on to do that for an hour or two, maybe from about 6 o'clock. But we find we can actually shut the heating off for much of the day. And as the day goes on, students, staff will actually open windows. because it's getting slightly warmer in the space. So that's providing some much-needed ventilation, because ventilation is an issue. On our older building, Chuuk building, which I mentioned with the other critical windows, the danger is if we put double-glazed sealed units everywhere around Chuuk, probably, I think there's the best part of 400 windows.

Right.

We would create some really, really uncomfortable conditions within the envelope of the building. Now we may well be able to turn the heating off, who knows, but ventilation is, is key. We would actually stop the ventilation that we have now because windows fit so badly, and that would have an impact on teaching, that would have an impact on the student experience and visitors' experience to Regents. So one of the things we're looking at now, we're working with a couple of engineers Just to try and identify a system that can work in tandem. So a system that will provide heating, a bit of ventilation, and a bit of cooling as well for the summer. And we're looking for that comprehensive package that if we do decide to do the windows, then we have to do this job as well.

Mm-hmm.

Because you can't do one without the other. You could do the HVAC, but that might well be money badly spent because all the good stuff you'd be creating, you'd be putting out the open windows. So we have to think about it in that very logical, cohesive, strategic manner, so we line things up and, and do things, um, as they need to be, uh, addressed. That's quite exciting for us. The other part, as I mentioned before, we— our gardens, um, I think it's about 12 acres we've got, and we have 4 full-time gardeners. And they do a marvellous job. We have, we have some beautiful gardens here. I mean, people who walk into Regent's are always, you know, overwhelmed by the— It is beautiful. Yeah, the lawns and the plants and the trees and so on. And I'm particularly proud of the gardening team because they're all committed to looking after our gardens in the most sustainable way possible. Um, there's no pesticides used here. We don't buy any pesticides. Um, everything we do is, I'd like to say, organic, if that's the right word. Uh, we, we recycle everything we can. Anything that we can't, then we dispose of, uh, in our, um, in our, uh, compost process.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and we have, uh, you know, real, real outturn from that every year. The amount of compostable stuff we put in the waste piles comes back onto the gardens because it's spread around every— it feels like it's about now actually, every spring everything's piped out and it really goes back into the soil. So nothing really taken off-site.

Mm-hmm.

Even when we, we do some excavations for various bits and bobs, um, we never take the soil off-site.

Mm-hmm.

We keep it, and recently we We excavated quite a lot of clay from a project we did, and the gardeners took the clay and some topsoil and actually created mounds within a wild garden area, and they've all been sown with wildflowers.

Right.

And in this early summer, they're absolutely fantastic, what we have around the place. So, you know, by creating these mounds, you've created a bit of interest, a little bit of you know, you're walking through the space, you see slightly different things. We have our bug hotel, which this year has gone really well actually. Bees, we had an apiary here for, for many years, but sadly it had fallen into disrepair, although now we've just agreed terms with a London bee organisation. I don't quite remember the name at the minute, but they've been signed up. The London Bee Centre? And they're going to be reactivating, or they may have started actually, 5 hives in our grounds. So we're quite looking forward to that, and we'll be producing honey. Probably not the first year, but certainly hopefully next summer, and definitely the summer after, you'll be able to buy Regent's honey at the till in our refectory.

Okay.

Which is, which is great. And we will be actually looking at our planting To make sure that we plant more and more flowers and borders to attract bees and other insects and stuff, because recognizing the value that they give to us.

And with all the work that you've done, the savings and the environmental impact that you've saved, Could you talk us a bit about what has happened and where you've got to and what you've achieved?

I think that the impact we've had has— so the impact of being more aware, more focused, and managing our environmental impact has been huge. People are very quick sometimes to come into organizations, including regents, and say, oh, you don't do anything.

Hmm.

And you think, well, why do you have that idea that we do— we don't do anything? And sometimes people's perception of what's happening in the environment is not quite the same as what organizations are trying to do. People will see one thing, they'll see some cardboard in an ordinary bin, or, you know, they'll see some plastic coffee cups just in the ordinary bins. Oh, you don't recycle them, and so forth and so on. Or there's always lights left on, or, you know, the heating's on and it's 22 degrees or whatever. So people have these comments regularly to say, well, because of that, that means this organization must be doing nothing. What we've been able to do with our approach to environmental management has been able to signpost people, individuals, to say, well, okay, we are doing things. Here's a list, if you like, and that list is through our ISO 50001, which you and your team know about. Indeed, you've helped us significantly to develop that. Because ISO 50001 for 50001 for me is a very basic tool. There's lots of technology around there, there's lots of words connected to it, and they're all there for you if you really want to sit and read them. I don't particularly find them that fascinating, but they are there. The key thing is it makes you think about delivering the ISO 50001. It makes you think about saying, okay, I've signed up for this, I've paid for it, because it's not cheap. It doesn't come for free. You have to pay money to people to do these things for you.

Yeah.

And then you have to pay people to come in and make sure you're doing it right.

Yeah.

So don't be under any illusion that it all comes free. You have to work pretty hard and you have to pay some money. But the key is at the end of the piece is to have your 50,001, you need to have done these things. And it's these things that I'm passionate about. These things produce financial savings. Now, as soon as you mention financial savings, you usually have the finance director, as team, probably most of the directorate and the business on board, because that is their goal. Their goal is to save money. If you tell them, well, we've recycled, you know, 2.5 tons of coffee cups a year, okay, they might smile and nod their head, but really they're not hugely interested. If you say to them, I've saved £15,000 a year on our electricity Running costs. Well, yeah, that's good. Can we do any more? And that is the point you have to grab onto. Can we do any more?

Yeah.

Yes. Now you then start to save your CO2, and I think here at Regent's we're well in the 30-odd percent of CO2 savings. So that's 32— I think it's the 34%, actually. I would like to check that one. 30-odd percent of where we've said, let's not let that carbon either be produced. So let's turn things off, or where it has to be produced, let's control it and let's try and stop that carbon waste going to atmosphere. That is our challenge. In terms of the energy saved, I've got some figures in here, and if you don't mind, I'll just have a look because I probably got it completely wrong.

Yeah.

We had a couple of challenging starts, so we actually had a baseline of 2016. We started off with a baseline of 2014, but then some buildings changed and other systems and processes changed, and we started to get slightly distorted, slightly skewed figures, so we did actually alter our baseline. And at the moment, we're, you know, to date, we've saved over a million cubic kilowatt-hours, no, a million kilowatt-hours of gas and slightly more than half of kilowatt-hours in terms of electricity. We've seen that in the numbers coming through the books. So that is That is a fact. We can, we can demonstrate that, we can prove that because we can say, well, here's a bill from today, here's a bill from 2 or 3 years ago, exactly the same space. We haven't grown, we haven't shrunk. Um, we can actually demonstrate that we have saved, um, that amount of energy coming through. So I think that's very important. The downside of it, and I have to take responsibility for this, is I, I don't promote that as well as perhaps we should. We do have a piece on our intranet where we tell our staff, our students, and our visitors who have access to our intranet what stuff we're doing. Now, I think we could do more.

Right.

I'm not one of these people who, who likes to shout about what we've done. I prefer to sort of get my head down and get on and do it. And maybe we need to sort of stop, come back, and be a little bit more— shout a bit louder about some of the achievements that we have made. Going forward, reducing our carbon emissions is the number one priority for me in this agenda. There's many agendas at the university, but when we talk about environmental management, environmental property, we're talking about making it better. What else can we do? And now we're in a position where new things don't necessarily cost huge amounts of money because we have the infrastructure, we have the mechanics there to do these things. Now, for example, we're replacing— we have some very fine roof lights on one of our buildings which the Northern Lights have if anybody knows exactly what that is. They're timber, they're in very poor condition, they're past their best, leaking dreadfully. We're taking an opportunity to replace all these and replace all the roof coverings. Now, to put it into context, that's about £1 million worth of work.

Right.

So that is, that is a phenomenal piece of work. As I always say, that's a lot of numbers of students that we need for a lot of years to pay for that.

Yeah.

But that's one of the things we did. Now, the key benefit that we've picked up on, there's a couple of things. The first one is the windows will all have actuators. Yes, opening actuators, which will control with a temperature system within the building to say it's hot, it's cold, it's wet, and so forth. And that will automatically control the windows. via the BMS. Now, people might say, well, that's quite simple, isn't it? No, it's an opportunity. Because to do it from a standing start, which would be very difficult given the windows we've got, would be very expensive. But to do it when we're replacing windows and thinking, oh, let's put a cable up there and a few actuators, is actually not an unreasonable cost.

Yeah.

But that will have a positive effect on people working in that space going forward. The heating systems that are there, like I mentioned earlier about heating, ventilation, and cooling systems, this is the same building. So already we're starting to look at saying, well, can we create something to facilitate the new installation going forward? Now, can we do it now? Can we do it today?

Yeah.

And actually, we may not do the actual work for 2, maybe even 3 years. And yes, we can, and that's exactly what we're doing.

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