Understand Your Estate and Plan with Confidence

Each one has been designed to give you clarity, confidence and a roadmap for action.

Journey to Decarbonisation Energy Audits

Our Journey to Decarbonisation Energy reports provide a high-level, but focused assessment of energy performance across your school or trust.

We look at:

• Energy use and patterns
• Heating and hot water systems
• Lighting and electrical infrastructure
• Building fabric and thermal performance
• Controls systems
• Opportunities for renewables
• Behavioural changes that help improve efficiency

Each report includes carbon and cost baselines, a list of recommended actions, budget estimates, and a clear plan of accessing funds or investing capital. The result is a concise, readable document that helps all stake holders make informed decisions.

These audits are particularly useful to help support funding applications such as CIF, government grants (DESNZ), and private investment.

Heat Decarbonisation Plans

One of the most critical stages in achieving net zero is reducing your reliance on fossil fuels for heating and hot water. This can often be a complex and confusing stage to navigate. Low carbon doesn’t always mean low cost, and finding the right solution that works for your school or trust needs to be thoroughly thought out, but practical.

Our Heat Decarbonisation Plans provide an assessment of your current heating and hot water systems, building envelope, controls and electrical infrastructure. We consider potential low carbon alternatives such as air and ground source heat pumps, and how they can be incorporate into your site to deliver the biggest impact on carbon and running costs.

We also include fabric-first interventions where appropriate, such as insulation or ventilation improvements, and hybrid systems that use a blend of fossil fuel, and renewable solutions.

Each Heat Decarbonisation Plan includes:

• Technical analysis and modelling
• Short- and medium-term upgrade options
• Capital and lifecycle cost estimates
• Carbon reduction potential
• Integration into your wider estate’s strategy

Our Heat Decarbonisation Plans are written in a clear, digestible format.

Climate Action Plans

By the end of 2025 the DfE are encouraging schools and trusts to lead on sustainability. A Climate Action Plan (CAP) should be developed, that pulls together all aspects of energy, water, waste, travel and learning. This can be a daunting prospect; however, we can help. 

With the support of our partners, MyCarbon, we can help you create a plan that:

• Provides transparent insights into your school or trusts carbon footprint
• Maps out a clear strategy to help you cut your emissions
• Aligns with your curriculum and School Improvement Plan (SIP)
• Is presented in a way that’s easily understood by staff, students, parents and governors

Having a Climate Action Plan in place demonstrates good strategic leadership, and will help support investment decisions and funding applications. 

Warneford Consulting has also produced our own Climate Action Plan developed in partnership with MyCarbon, to lead by example and demonstrate what best practice can look like.