The key source of the College’s direct emissions are its buildings. To address this, the Buildings Committee has become the Sustainability and Buildings Committee and has commissioned a heat decarbonisation plan to guide our programme of works over the next decade. This survey is now informing our priorities for removing gas boilers and improving insulation with a view to ensuring that we can make rapid progress to decarbonising our operational sites. Corpus is dedicated to reducing the energy use in its buildings and decarbonising by 2050 at the latest.
Completed Projects
Corpus has been consciously aiming to integrate sustainability into its buildings projects for some time now. For instance, the Al Jaber MBI Auditorium was constructed to be heated by an air source heat pump, which is hidden in the terrace above. Furthermore, our Lampl Building site has a combined heat and power plant which reduces emissions by generating heat and power simultaneously. Likewise, our Banbury Road properties have solar panels which generate part of our electricity needs on site.
The College is also among the first Oxford Colleges to have removed all gas appliances in its kitchen, a key part of gas use reduction.
Similarly, the programme of upgrading old sash windows in Gentleman Commoners’ Quad was completed during summer 2022 with a view to improving the thermal efficiency of our heritage buildings. The same is the case with the recent refurbishment of the Porter’s Lodge.
Passivhaus Building
Corpus considers the environmental impacts of any new building projects. We went live with the project to build a new Special Collections Centre in 2021. To be named The Spencer Building. It will, we hope, be the first Passivhaus building to be linked to a sixteenth-century Grade I listed range of buildings, having passed a rigorous pressure test, a significant milestone on its journey to Passivhaus certification. The architectectural firm Wright & Wright, is well known for the work they have done in both Oxford and Cambridge and most recently at Lambeth Palace. The project will be completed in 2024.
For more information about the building, look at the project’s website here.
Read the Bursar's article Green College, published in the July 2020 issue of the Sundial, here.
Read architects Clare Wright and Kirsty Shankland's article in the December 2020 issue of the Sundial, here.
Read architects Sandy Wright and Kirsty Shankland's article in the February 2023 issue of the Sundial, here.
