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Scotland's schools are to become greener under a new Government initiative to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop has announced a package of measures which will work towards a lower carbon school estate and meet the Government's commitments to have renewable generation in every school as well as contributing to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 as will be required under the Scottish Climate Change Bill.

The measures are:

    * working with Carbon Trust to 'up-skill' local authorities to ensure they have the appropriate abilities and confidence to secure sustainable school design. An early focus of this will be direct assistance for the three not-for-profit distributing (NPD) school building projects which have yet to reach financial close (Moray, Orkney and Western Isles) to raise the ambition for sustainable design

    * funding two Schools Renewables Development Officers to work with authorities to increase the uptake of micro-renewables in schools by developing packages of funding from public and private sources to support microgeneration installations. The initial focus will be on accessing funds from the UK Low Carbon Building Programme and identifying partnerships opportunities with the private sector

    * creating a sustainable schools 'web-portal' which will act as an authoritative source of advice and guidance on creating a low carbon school estate.

    * In response, the Government will work with the Carbon Trust to develop a package of measures designed to help local authorities secure sustainable school designs

Ms Hyslop said:

"The green message to be conveyed through environmentally-friendly school buildings and facilities cannot be stressed enough.

"Recently, I visited Sanderson's Wynd Primary school in Tranent and saw a low carbon school in action. With its combination of automatic lighting which reacts to the amount of daylight in a room, a windmill and solar panels on the roof to provide electricity, its design is leading the way in sustainable schools. There was a lesson for the children, too, in that the school also has an information panel displaying just how much energy the school is generating at any one time.

"All of the measures at Sanderson will be important in helping tackle climate change and, at a time of high fuel prices, both renewable generation and energy efficiency measures will be important in helping local authorities reduce consumption, carbon emissions and energy bills."

An Audit Scotland Improving the School Estate report published in March 2008 noted that authorities needed to do more to ensure environmental sustainability is a 'key factor in the design of schools'.

Ms Hyslop also announced that additional assistance to each authority will also be offered by a Carbon Trust 'low carbon' consultant. The Carbon Trust has already worked closely with Inverclyde Council during the procurement of their PPP schools scheme and has helped them achieve very high standards of energy-efficiency for the schools within the project

John Stocks, manager of the Carbon Trust in Scotland, said:

"We have been pleased with our project with Inverclyde Council to help secure schools with a significantly lower carbon footprint than their more traditional designs. We must now repeat this exercise working with more public sector procurement teams and ensuring that bid teams will have to incorporate low carbon design principles into their proposed solutions.

"I am delighted to say that the Carbon Trust will be repeating this project with a number of local authorities and we hope that we can facilitate up-skilling across the construction sector."

The Energy Efficiency Unit, of the Enterprise, Energy & Tourism Directorate, is funding two Schools Renewables Development Officers (SRDOs) to promote uptake of micro-renewables in schools to reduce carbon emissions and energy costs and raise awareness of sustainable energy issue.

The SRDOs, who are now in place, will work with every local authority to help them identify renewable potential in their schools. This initiative will seek to maximise the uptake by authorities of the UK Low Carbon Building Programme (LCBP) which provides 50 per cent funding for the installation costs of a range of renewable technologies. The SRDOs will also assist authorities to explore funding potential.

The web portal, hosted on the Scottish Government website, will present advice and guidance on design issues, relevant regulations and specific additional funding that may be available to assist them in developing sustainable schools.

Although the design of a low to zero carbon new school building may result in slightly higher initial capital construction costs, whole life costs should be lower so there is a clear incentive for authorities to build sustainable schools.

The consultation on the Framework for the Development and Deployment of Renewables in Scotland, published on October 6 sets out Government proposals for achieving 20 per cent renewable energy by 2020.