What is SUSU doing to become more environmentally friendly?
Anonymous submitted on
Saturday 16th January 2016
Complete
I've noticed that there's a sign by the front door of SUSU saying that it had something like an F grade in how environmentally friendly the building is. I realise that it is a massive building and probably is a massive drain on resources but I'm sure there must be something which can be done so it isn't that ridiculously bad! I know as somebody who has been active in a sports society which has used various rooms around SUSU over the last few years that heating has been a problem for us. On many occassions we are exercising in a room and it becomes overly hot because the radiators are blasting and we have no way of turning them down (Activities room was particularly bad). We were forced to open windows so combat the heat which obviously isn't ideal environmentally. Something small like having temperature controls in each room I think could make a massive difference. I'm assuming that the reason that you do not already do this is because of a fear that societies will leave the heating on after they are done with a room but this can be combatted easily by having a "cap" on the heating to whatever level SUSU has it on now so societies can lower the heating but only increase it back to the level it initially was. I believe that there's a society called BEES or something which does environmental audits- have they auditted SUSU?
Answers
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Ed Baird submitted on
Monday 18th January 2016
Complete
Hi, thanks for getting in touch. Both Students’ Union buildings are owned by the University and maintenance or building alterations (outside of interior decoration) are the responsibility of the Estates and Facilities department. We are currently at the start of a feasibility study to renovate the Students’ Union spaces, which will involve modernising facilities and systems in the building. There will be more information about this soon, if you have any questions please contact Union President, Ben Franklin (pres@susu.org).
Heating in the buildings is also controlled centrally by the University (they also manage some of the sports facilities in the building), but if you contact reception in building 42 they may be able to submit a maintenance request to get the heating changed for the particular room.
Installing temperature controls in individual rooms would be a huge task and the responsibility of the University. The reason it is not in place already is that the University decide how to heat their buildings, it is not a decision made by SUSU.
BEES is a project run by the Students’ Union which has now reached the end of its initial funding period. We are evaluating new student-led ways to run this project. An audit has been done on the Students’ Union, with some recommendations already put in place and others are waiting for progress on future building maintenance and development.