As part of their role as Enterprise Advisors to the Liverpool City Region Careers Hub, Matt Breakwell and Grace Roberts from the Kimpton team, recently spent the morning with the Year 7’s from Prenton High School for girls, working with them on their Enterprise Challenge.
The challenge this year was to create a plan for introducing sustainable and decarbonisation measures throughout the school and present to the panel of judges, their findings, ideas and methodology.
It started with a presentation from Matt and Grace talking about life and the career opportunities in building services engineering and sharing some of the renewable energy options available we deliver as a business. They were then split off into groups, and roles within the groups defined.
With this done, the teams sent their appointed auditors off to inspect the school and look for efficiency measures that could be realistically implemented.
They then prepared CAD models (Cardboard Aided Design) using recycled materials to demonstrate their ideas and produced presentation materials to explain their thinking.
When the presentations were complete a winner was selected and prizes were awarded.
And to quote Grace, ‘The presentations were amazing, I couldn’t believe how good the ideas were and the level of understanding’
“The winning team took a completely holistic approach to sustainability, they considered every aspect we had talked about. They talked about how they would reduce waste, carbon and energy use through improved insulation, light sensors in classrooms and other measures. At the same time, they talked about energy production with large scale Solar PV and wind power. They planned for heat pumps to heat the school and even considered their personal impact, by introducing a meat free Monday to the school and forming an Eco Club, so everyone could play their part in making and implementing changes.
We loved the level of detail they considered. One team suggested a veg garden to produce some of the food they eat at the school and maybe supply the local food bank with fresh vegetables. Even this had its sustainable element, with the water for the garden being provided by a rainwater harvesting system.
Matt summed the day up when he said
“It was great to see how much sustainability was embedded into their thinking and how they took on board the renewable technologies available and the part they had to play in making sure we deliver our net zero targets. The winning form group had used a whole range of measures to reduce waste, energy and carbon whilst using renewables to generate energy. They even decided to set up an ESG Group (which they called an ECO Club) to monitor progress and share ideas – something most SMEs are still in the process of doing!”
Here are some pictures of the day in progress.
If you would like to discuss any of our services, please call 0151 343 1963 or complete the form below and we will be in touch shortly.
