Mayor launches £2m Greener Schools scheme to cut carbon and energy bills

Transcript

00:00So the £2 million we've announced today as part of our Greener Schools initiative is part of a pilot.

00:04The idea is that we work with boroughs who will match fund the £2 million to become £4 million.

00:10We think the initial pilot will be dozens of schools. It depends how much grant an individual

00:14school needs. So school A may want a heat pump, school B may want insulation, school C may want

00:21lower energy lights. And so what happens is we'll work with the boroughs in relation to the bids

00:26they make. And the idea is to see which targeted interventions are the most effective and which

00:33are the most scalable. We're in a school that's benefited from our funding and then we're going

00:37to go to the government and say look we know this is one of your missions, we know this is a priority

00:42for the government. We've got an evidence base which shows this investment leads to not just

00:48less carbon but smaller bills which can be used for education, staff, equipment, books and so

00:55forth. That will hopefully encourage the government to roll this out. We've calculated an average

01:00school will have bills saved around £18,000 a year across London. That's potentially £15 million

01:07that can be invested in education. So I'm hoping both Ed Miliband and Bridget Phillips will be

01:14looking at a pilot with keen interest. Is there a maximum grant that you'll be awarding for this

01:19sort of project? Yes so boroughs apply for the grant rather than schools and so borough can get

01:26up to £500,000. But don't forget boroughs we want them to match fund as well so that's £2 million

01:32becomes £4 million. But what we've seen from this school already they're starting to see savings and

01:36their heat pump only went in a few weeks ago. You've also talked about wanting to introduce

01:41air quality filters in classrooms. What progress have you made on that? We're making announcements

01:45the new year in relation to our plans to encourage schools rather than boroughs to

01:50apply for these indoor air quality filtration systems.