The key source of the College’s environmental impact are its buildings, which Corpus has recognised in its transformation of the Buildings Committee into the Sustainability & Buildings Committee. Corpus is dedicated to reducing the energy use in its buildings and decarbonising by 2050 at the latest.
Completed Projects
As such, the College is among the first Oxford Colleges to have removed all gas appliances in its College 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
Furthermore, we consider the environmental impacts of any new building projects. For example, the College went live with its project to build a new Special Collections Centre in 2021. The Spencer Building will, we hope, be the first Passivhaus building to be linked to a sixteenth-century Grade I listed range of buildings. The architects are Wright & Wright, well known for the work they have done in both Oxford and Cambridge and most recently at Lambeth Palace. The project will complete in mid-2024.
For more information about the building, check out the project’s website here.
To read the Bursar's article Green College, published in the July 2020 issue of the Sundial, click here.
To read architects Clare Wright and Kirsty Shankland's article about the Special Collections Centre project, published in the December 2020 issue of the Sundial, click here.
