King Charles’ alma mater aims to be one of UK’s greenest schools

Renowned independent boarding school Gordonstoun has announced carbon emissions reductions of nearly 10% for 2022-23, alongside plans to build its own solar farm.

The school, set in 200 acres of woodland by the Moray Firth, north west of Aberdeen, achieved the cuts primarily through reductions in the amounts of gas, heating oil and fuel for transport that it used over the 12-month period. It says it plans to become one of the greenest schools in the country.

Three generations of British royalty have been educated at Gordonstoun, including King Charles III.

The school says the measures taken in that 12-month period saved almost 150,000 metric tonnes of CO2 – equivalent to 10,000 hot air balloons – with emissions falling from 1,605,207 to 1,455,549 metric tonnes of CO2 per year.

It is now finalising a longer-term sustainability strategy, which entails more ambitious measures to help meet targets. In February, Gordonstoun opened a new building, the Queen Elizabeth II Rooms, built with materials selected for minimum embodied carbon and featuring solar PV panels, ground source heating and advanced CO2 monitoring technology.

The school has also committed to investing around £15 million in the next phase of its campus master plan, which will include a new solar farm to provide energy for the school and potentially some of its neighbours.

A spokesperson for the school told Energy Voice that the location of the solar farm had yet to be decided. They are currently looking at sites near the school, including land used for agriculture. It is hoped that the technical design will be finalised by the end of the year, with the site becoming operational in 2025. The project is likely to be funded by a specialist green loan facility.

Senior school head Simon Cane-Hardy said: “As Gordonstoun celebrates its 90th anniversary, it’s important that we future proof the school for decades to come. All new buildings will be built to the highest environmental standards and the solar farm will eventually provide most of our energy.”