Improving Efficiency Within The Education Sector Using Salix Loans

We’re continuously being updated, through various facets of the media, on the importance of making proactive environmental changes in our lives and workplaces, as a means to ensure the future good health of the planet’s climate. Unfortunately, these sorts of capital improvements, which often come in the form of plant and equipment changes, tend not to come too cheap. Looking at schools in particular, many of the state sector’s school estates are becoming increasingly energy inefficient. This costs the planet in both the immediate future and the longer-term. It also costs the school as well, financially speaking. That’s where Salix funding comes in. Munday + Cramer are specialists in securing successful bid applications for grants such as Salix loans. Securing this funding can prove difficult, but not if you’ve got the right help behind you.

What Is Salix Funding?

Salix is an independent, not-for-profit group granting funding on behalf of the UK Government and its various departments – both central and devolved. As a company, Salix’s main aims are to help enable public sector organisations, such as schools, for example, to tackle climate change head-on. It’s estimated that Salix funding has helped reduce carbon dioxide emissions within the public sector by 821,583 tonnes annually. When looking at schools, in particular, figures showed that state-funded schools in England spent more than half a billion pounds on gas and electricity in 2016/17. Salix funding has been shown to mitigate some of these costs, helping schools save approximately £1.8 million per annum, a not-insignificant amount, by any means.

For the educational sector, Salix works in conjunction with the Department for Education (DfE). An integral component of Salix’s ethos is the idea of accountability. It’s for this reason that the funding criteria in place are so stringent. For example, projects will only be granted funding if they can prove that their payback time will be within 8 years of implementation. Further to that, the project itself mustn’t exceed a cost of £222 per tonne of carbon dioxide; there’s no point implementing something that’s going to cost more to install, environmentally speaking, than it will end up saving down the line. The interest-free loan is then paid back to Salix using the savings made on the school’s energy bill from the newly implemented technologies.

How Is Salix Funding Used In Practice

Should you secure a successful bid, and be granted Salix funding, then there are various ways in which it can be used to bolster your estate’s environmental strength. The provision of the interest-free loan can be used to install over 100 different technologies known to reduce carbon emissions. These technologies include: LED lighting upgrades, boiler replacements, pipework insulation, energy-efficient combi-ovens, energy-efficient hot-water taps and many, many more. The benefit of Salix-only schemes, when compared with a more combination-based approach – applying for Salix funding within a CIF (Condition Improvement Fund) application, for instance – is that Salix loans can be applied for all-year-around. This is another part of what makes Salix loans such an appealing prospect for schools – their versatility.

Munday + Cramer Salix Case Studies

Desiring Salix funding is one thing, securing it is quite another. Successful bid applications will require reams of technical content on the part of the applying school. As such, the help of experts such as Munday + Cramer can make for much plainer sailing. Below are just some of the estates that have benefitted from Salix funding, with the help of Munday + Cramer:

• Gable Hall School. Prior to its loan application, this academy in Corringham, Essex, was suffering from a host of energy-related problems. The boiler and electric pumps were markedly inefficient; the water pipes were poorly insulated, and the hot water’s distribution around the building was also particularly inefficient. Thanks to Salix funding, a boiler replacement could be brought in. Further to that, a new, more efficient water distribution network implemented in line with Munday + Cramer’s design brief.
• Mark’s West Essex Catholic School. Within St. Mark’s CIF application bid, an application for Salix funding was also made to update their boiler; a dated piece of equipment in need of an immediate replacement. Further to the boiler replacement, the Salix loan went towards covering the costs of pipework insulation and energy-efficient valve installation. This new boiler will keep the school covered for the next 25 years; it will also do so in an altogether more sustainable fashion.

Schools, academies, sixth-form colleges and other educational establishments are all looking to go greener. Salix funding can help them do just that. An already strained sector being constantly squeezed; the importance of Salix funding has never been as great for schools, nor have bid applications, more generally. So, if you’d like to find out more about any of Munday + Cramer’s work revolving around Salix loans applications, then get in touch! Contact us today on 01245 326 200 to see how we could help.