Our Co-Chair Jess shares how St Augustine's Centre is putting sustainability and climate justice at the heart of what we do.
This month there’s been high excitement at the centre as we took huge steps to making our buildings kinder to the planet and more resilient to the challenges of rising fuel prices and increasingly unpredictable weather.
Our attic rooms were previously baking hot in summer and icy cold in winter. Now they are fully insulated and ready for whatever the weather will throw at them. We’ve got rid of all our power-guzzling fluorescent light bulbs and tubes, and now the centre is lit throughout by smart, ultra-low energy, LED lights.
Probably our proudest achievement is our shiny new solar panels. Not only will we be consuming less power (due to the insulation and the LED) but we’re now generating our own energy! And if we make more than we need – we can even sell it back to the national grid!
All of this is part of a big push to make St Augustine’s a more ‘sustainable’ organisation. We hear the ‘S word’ all the time but it’s interesting to reflect on what this really means in the context of our wonderful centre.
On a very basic level, we’re doing everything we can to make sure that our operations do as little damage as possible to our fragile and precious natural world. As a result of all our new improvements, we estimate we’re going to be drawing down 61% less energy from the national grid than previously. And we’ll be cutting our climate-warming carbon emissions by 25%.
But ‘sustainability’ is so much more than burning fewer fossil fuels. A deep respect for our earth’s limited natural resources now runs through everything we do at St Augustine’s. Every week brings a new environmentally friendly development, passionately championed by Premises Manager Paul. From the brilliant bike and tech refurb scheme to the free shop of donated clothes; new recycling points throughout the centre to the composting in the garden. We even have brand new water carriers that mean we will no longer take plastic bottles on our walks or trips to the beach.
We are proud to say – though there’s still changes to be made – we now have Zero Waste at the heart of everything we do. All with the input of our Centre Members – many of whom have extraordinary environmental expertise. We still want to reduce or stop laminating; encourage more of the team to walk or cycle to work; add in a cycle rack and water butts.
Sustainability isn’t just about our physical surroundings, so we will also be thinking about our digital footprint. The amount and types of content on every web page directly impact its carbon footprint. We’re planning to audit our website to make sure there isn’t redundant content, keeping our website leaner and greener.
All in all, it’s a very joyous thing to see the centre’s operations transforming and improving in this way. But we must not forget what’s at stake and why fighting the climate crisis is particularly significant at St Augustine’s.
As the world’s weather becomes increasingly unstable, people, in ever greater numbers, will be forced to seek refuge here in Calderdale. And, in a particularly cruel irony, it’s the people who have done least to cause the climate crisis who will be the worst affected by it.
It’s this irony that is at the heart of the concept of ‘climate justice’. It’s based on the fact that the richest 1% of the world’s population create twice as many climate destabilising emissions as the poorest 50%.
So, when we talk about sustainability at St Augustine’s it is something that is absolutely core to our ‘purpose’; the values that define everything we do. Our purpose is very clear (do check it out on our website if you’re not already familiar with it). It says that we are a diverse community which seeks to challenge injustice. That’s why sustainability for us is about so much more than insulation, recycling and reducing waste. We want to challenge all forms of injustice – and that means climate injustice too.