Transition University St Andrews

St Andrews Environmental Network & Transition University St Andrews

CCF Project Report 2015-16

St Andrews Towards Transition

Table of contents

1. Executive Summary 3

2. Programme of Works

3. Headline Achievements

4. Transition Steering Group & StAndEN End of Project Reports

5. Carbon Conversations Streets

6. Carbon Conversation Schools

7. Bike Pool

8. Travel Behavioural Change Programme

9. Remote Housing Power Down

10. StAnd ReUse Town

11. Edible Campus

12. Bringing a Car Club to St Andrews

13. Staffing

14. Appendicies

a. Guardbridge Park and Pedel Responses

b. Edible Campus at a Glance

Final report 2015 -16

1) Executive Summary

St Andrews Environmental Network: In 2010, St Andrews Community Council formed a sub-group known as St Andrews Environmental Network (StAndEN) after discussion at several Community Council meetings and presentations to elected Community Councillors. This group focused on carbon savings through targeting households and successfully won a grant: CCF 248. The project ‘Energy Champions’ was successfully delivered throughout 2010-2011. An unsuccessful application was made for funding for a follow-on project in 2011. However, the StAndEN Board met with the project manager and staff at the end of March 2011 and it was agreed that there was evidence of continued need for the project and that it would carry on with the staff working as volunteers while other funding options were explored. The Community Council decided and approved the establishment of StAndEN as a company with its own constitution (see supporting documents) and separate bank account, enabling the group to act as an employer. 2012 – 2015 StAndEN has been active in the whole KY16 *** postcode area in partnership with Transition UStA as part of the St Andrews Communities working together CCF project 2017. This successful was able to make great headway in reducing the Carbon Footprint of St Andrews while helping to forge a strong working relationship between the town and the University - both students and staff. This project took our energy advice service to rural isolated community. A major event, the Sustainable St Andrews Fair, has been held annually bringing together installers of energy saving technologies, renewable energy technologies and enterprises supporting low carbon living. This event took place in 2015 without ccf funding. StAndEN will continued the Primary Schools Programme in 2015 and even did two presentations on insulation to nursery school children in St Andrews, this was well received by the children as well as the staff and their parents. We used the analogy of dressing a child up in warm clothes, hat represented loft insulation, a coat represented wall insulation etc. Much of the material developed for the Primary School Programme in previous years covering such topics as Saving Energy, Renewable Energy, Waste reduction and Recycling was used as basis the for Carbon Conversations Schools. Carbon Conversations Schools was very successful this year and will continue next year. StAndEN has built a close relationship with Madras College which it is looking to develop further.. StAndEN has been in partnership with Greener Kirkcaldy, Changeworks and Citizens Advice & Rights Fife in delivering the Cosk Kingdom Project throughout Fife since 2014. StAndEN delivers fuel poverty help to households living in North East Fife & Glenrothes as part of this partnership. During 2015 StAndEN launched St AndRe-Use Town, collecting unwanted items from students as they were leaving their private rented accommodation. These items were sorted, weighed and stored over the summer in a garage provide by Fife Council. All the items apart from clothing was given away during freshers week. The clothes were donated to the Glenrothes Food Bank (the only food bank in Fife that also ran a clothing bank at that time). This project is set to grow and we have secured additional storage space to accommodate it. Volunteers from StAndEN working with the Express Group in St Andrews run a community garden adjacent to Kinburn Bowling & Tennis Club. This project has yielded 9.2 kgms of Crops during the last year, however the emphasis is on the effect of the gardening 3

experience rather than the yield from the site. Over the coming year StAndEN will resume negotiations with Fife Council to have the site adjacent to the cemetery transferred to the common good, so that allotments can be made available for residents in St Andrews. If successful funding for the capital works will be sought from other sources as the earliest the site could be productive is 2017-18.

Transition UStA was initiated by the One World Student group in 2009 as part of a national Transition Universities campaign. It rapidly grew support from staff and local residents as it sought to take local, practical action on climate change and build resilience to peak oil. Since then our relationship with the Transition Towns movement has strengthened across Scotland and the UK as we became a Transition Town member and build links to other groups through hosting networking events and organising training.

Within St Andrews University the role of Transition UStA has also expanded as the group seeks to work at all levels in support of the Universities world leading Carbon Neutral goals. Whilst the Transition UStA staff team have been based within the Estates department it has strong links to academic staff and takes an active role in supporting and influencing study so that it best serves a local transition agenda. This staff / student coalition appears to be a unique strength of the groups work and provides interesting benefits as well as challenges.

In recognition that for Transition to happen in St Andrews we must work across all sections of the community the group has since 2012 taken active steps to ensure representation from our local community within our steering group too. The majority of our projects also have a town and gown focus which not only improves relationships between the two but also plays to the strengths of both. The University provide considerable support to the project in the form of staffing, accommodation, administration and access to vehicles and trades. This makes any funding go a long way and makes efficient use of resources.

Transition UStA’s development is marked by the considerable support of the Climate Challenge Fund which started in April 2011 with funding for 9 projects. This successful first year of work cut an estimated 634 tCO2e and diverted over 2 tonnes of waste from landfill plus led to recognition within the University and town of the importance of this agenda. A further application was made to the Climate Challenge Fund for work to start in April 2012 for a 3 year period and again in October 2014 for the period April 2015 to March 2016 which is covered by this report.

Table 1 CCF Project Summary table 2015-16

Length of project 1 years Project Start 1/4/2015 Date

Target CO2e 309 tonnes CO2e Total CCF £148,102 reduction grant applied for

2) Programme of Work

In partnership with St Andrews Environmental Network, Transition UStA received funding to deliver a range of projects under the banner of “ST Andrews Communities Working Together”

The successful partnership of Transition University St Andrews and the St Andrews Environmental Network will deliver projects that provide simple, low carbon solutions whilst embedding sustainable enterprise within the community. Through tackling issues around rural home energy, access to local food and food growing, increasing options for affordable and accessible sustainable transport, and enhancing neighbourhood links, local people will be enabled to take practical action on climate change. This programme will bring about social, economic and environmental benefits for St Andrews as well as cut carbon emissions by 344 tCO2e per year.

Whilst both groups provided mutual assistance to each other throughout, each objective had a lead organisation to take it forward :

Transition UStA objectives 1. Tackle high bike abandonment rates and increase cycling activity by helping owners to improve bike condition and through offering a long term bike loan scheme. This will be associated with training and support for cycling as well as routeway improvements 2. Bringing a car club to St Andrews; We will increase the take-up and visibility of a low emissions Community Car Club, that includes Electric Vehicles, through working with the Operators, Local Authority, University and local representative structures to promote, market and embed the scheme in the community. Working in partnership with Home Energy Scotland offer Fuel Efficient driver training to car club members. 3. Develop a Carbon Conversations streets programme that will link residents with similar buildings or situations to tackle personal and community carbon footprints. Initially based around our team of local volunteer facilitators and residents who have expressed an interest, meetings will be held within participants’ households using the CC structure, and seek practical outcomes for the home owners and community. 4. Edible St Andrews - We will merge our food growing and distribution project with veg bag delivery and dry foods resale under one Food Hub. Develop electric trike-based distribution across the town and university, linking with the Fife Diet Food Coop project to share techniques and knowledge on linking local producers to customers. Use the Hub to help promote food waste reduction through workshops, behaviour change techniques and information. Work with St Andrews Botanic garden to create year-round food growing under cover, along with seedling propagation and help establish a new community space for food growing, increasing learning and fresh local food for sale.

StAndEN objectives 5. Remote Housing Powerdown - We will provide energy advice to those living off the gas grid and away from villages, increasing uptake of solid wall insulation, heat pumps, green deal and 5

renewables. Work with residents according to their needs and financial situations and align them to grants and support available. We will refer householders to Home Energy Scotland and working closely with their Edinburgh team we will ensure the most advantageous outcome for our clients. StAndEN staff will be receiving Fuel Efficient Driver Training in September. Once the car club is established StAndEN will look at using electric car club vehicles were possible to reduce the carbon footprint of project delivery. 6. St AndRe-Use Town - Building on the successful Re-use program within the University, we will expand support to the town and especially private rented accommodation by providing a bookable pick-up service for household goods (not furniture). This will sorted, stored and re-distributed to townsfolk and incoming students, reducing their consumption of new goods. StAndEN has joined CRNS and has had discussions with them regarding small electrical appliances. If StAndEN become aware of any large items suitable for reuse we will contact the Castle Furniture Project in Cupar and arrange an uplift 7. Carbon Conversations School: The Schools project will deliver a similar programme to afterschool or interest groups (EcoSchool Groups for example) ending in discussions around community action, potentially spurring a future Junior CCF project

University Funded objectives In recognition of the work undertaken through Transition on helping the University achieve its sustainability goals the University of St Andrews funded 1 FT equivalent post and project costs until Feb 2016. This post focused on academic departments and the estates environment team. The objectives included: o Develop links between academia and grassroots activity enhancing the impact of sustainability research at the University, including staff and student research. o Develop student initiated sustainability projects from open forums. o Work closely with the Environment Team on outreach and engagement for sustainable behaviour change to staff and students. o Interhall Energy Competition – deliver a behaviour change project to encourage halls residents to cut their energy use o StAndRe-Use divert student household waste from landfill and contribute towards the University’s goal of achieving zero waste by 2020. o Skillshares – bring together a diverse number of societies and enhanced the practical skills of participants, which may be used to reduce their ecological footprint and increase their capacities. o Coordinate the University’s sustainability message, ensuring a high awareness of the University’s sustainability activities and events within the University and externally for prospective students. o Engage with external regional and national organisations on sustainability awareness raising events in St Andrews (eg. Earth Hour, Big Tent).

Zero Waste Scotland Volunteer Coordinator After working with Zero Waste Fife on the cooksmarter project in 2014-15, Transition developed a successful bid for Zero Waste Scotland Volunteer funding to coordinate activities in St Andrews. This 1 day a week post works with volunteers to develop events, promotions and educational programmes. It is funded through to June 2017

Smarter Choices Smarter Places We were part of a partnership bid for funding through Fife council to deliver a programme of works and activities linked to enabling and promoting smarter travel. This included cycle storage, signage, a sustainable travel map and a behaviour change programme undertaken by a paid post.

3) Headline Achievements

We had variable success in achieving our carbon emissions savings with some projects coming in on target and others being wide of the mark often due to their experimental nature. More detail about these projects can be seen in the project reports below as well as the additional benefits.

Table 2 CCF Carbon Emissions savings - Budget versus Actual

t CO2e CCF Project CCF Target Actual Edible Campus 11.23 1.1 Bike Pool 16 296 EV Car Club 111 6 Carbon Conversations 432 51.3 Carbon Conversations – Schools 71.96 Additions actions by parents 48 36.59 Remote Housing Power Down Installed 501.47 Remote Housing Power Down Committed 601.89 494.67 StAnd Reuse - town 5.89 2.88 Total 1226.01 1461.97 Wind turbine - additional 1710

Headline Achievements  Won EUAC Green Gown award Highly Commended  Held 50 bike maintenance sessions  Fixed 643 bikes  Transition events were attended by over 2177 people  Logged over 1800 volunteer hours  Harvested 730kg of fruit and veg  Managed 13 growing spaces  Re-used over 4.5 tonnes of furniture and household goods

 Hosted 5 Carbon Conversations sessions for 27 people  Assisted car club gain over 300 members in one year  Contacted all 598 rural properties  Gave energy advice to 298 households  Presented CCF schools to 120 students

4) Transition Steering Group & StAndEN End of Projects Report a) Activities Transition Steering Group It was another busy year for the team of 20 Transition Steering group member following our AGM in April 2015 at the Botanic gardens. We worked with a number of groups and networks to engage our community in the low carbon living agenda.

In partnership with the Student Association and University Environment team we again ran a town wide Green Week that feature over 40 events and engaged with over 1300 people. We changed the timing of this to take place in October at the start of the heating season but also to fit in better with the academic year.

During the warmer months of spring we were involved in a music festival situated in the local Botanic Garden and in return helped clear out a greenhouse which is now home to a butterfly exhibition.

We once again hosted a Green Film Festival in February that ran over 4 nights and attracted 100’s of people to the Byre theatre. The final debate focused on the Paris COP21 and what the agreement actually means. We were helped through this discussion by a Climate Lawyer who was at the summit.

Figure 1 Transition UStA was well represented at the Edinburgh Climate March

We also engaged with and collected feedback from local community through various interactive events and surveys when applying for more funding in order to ensure that we are responsive to community needs and will.

St AndEN Once again the StAndEN had a very busy year visiting householders in their homes, collecting household items from students and delivering a series of talks to students at Madras College. We were also involved in many of the events run by Transition and gave a number of talks to community groups both within the KY16 postcode area and beyond. We once again hosted the Sustainable Fair in the Town Hall and attended the Community Council Coffee mornings interacting with local residents throughout the town. b) Key events Transition Steering Group A submission to the national Green Gown Awards run by the Environmental Network of the Universities and Colleges (EUAC) resulted in us being presented with a Highly Commended. Three members of the steering group and the project manager went to pick the prize up at a really inspiring night in Bristol.

Members of our group have been working with the Transition Network on a University Transition guide based on our experience and those from other Scottish institutions.

We also participate in the national Transition Network and have an active role in helping to establish the Fife Communities Climate Action Network. This has included assisting with the group’s Figure 2 Transition UStA picking up an Award at the Green Gown in 2015 development and the project worker interviews.

c) Reflections and learnings Transition Steering Group

Composition of steering group, staff, students, community members – internal evaluation

Our steering group grew to 20 members in 2015 which provided problems with organisation of meetings. To rectify this the constitution was changed to include a Chair, co-chair, vice Chair and treasurer.

Composition of StAndEN Board Our Board was the resignation of Roddy Yarr after he left the employment of t Andrews University and his input will be greatly missed. Howard Greenwell (The Chair of The Royal Burgh of St Andrews Community Council) and Harry Stewart a community councillor joined the Board.

5) Carbon Conversations a) Introduction Carbon Conversations is a six-session group meeting programme examining climate change and how individuals can lower their carbon impact while saving money and connecting with others. Transition-UStA run the courses, which are offered both to students and community members, for free in St Andrews. Each course is run by two trained facilitators, and typically has between two and eight participants. While most of our participants are students, local residents and University Staff also attend, which adds some diversity to our groups and creates opportunities for learning and reflection.

Our team of professionally trained volunteers have worked over 800 hours since 2012, between completing a rigorous, two-day training session and leading weekly meetings. In addition to our volunteers, the success of each session relies upon our well-designed workbooks (which were recently updated) and other materials, all of which are focused on achieving a low-carbon future by lessening one’s impact in the following areas: home energy, travel, food and other consumption. In these weekly sessions, participants discuss not only the practicalities of implementing change, but also how they feel about making these changes. This is a key aspect of the Carbon Conversations program.

The sixth meeting of every Carbon Conversations group is always a very special one, as its theme and focus is chosen by the participants themselves. One group chose to make video, another chose to get together for an apple pressing, others have decided to watch documentaries on a variety of environmental topics together, while other groups come together to cook and eat sustainable food. Our latest sixth meeting took place at the Fife Food Festival, where the participants got to catch up while sampling loads of local foods. b) Outputs The main focus of the project was in running the various weekly Carbon Conversations courses, but we have also held a variety of events since the end of last year’s funding cycle, including the following:

 8 Taster sessions for university students and community members throughout the year with 6 people per group on average  In class shout outs by one of our facilitators, Emily, February 3rd and 5th  Workshop for Computer Science which approximately 35 students attended in late Spring 2013  Hosted a ‘Green Drinks’ facilitator meet up March 2016  Promoted alongside events such as The Garden Party at the Botanic Garden, Fresher's and Re- Fresher's fayres, Green Week, David Russel Apartment welcome day, and many others  Infrared survey community event 19th of November, 2015  Joint mail-out with St Andrews Energy group to potentially interested residents 19th January, 2016

We have reached out to the community in a variety of ways such as through fliers and posters around town, advertisements in the staff and student newsletter In the Loop and with other online community social media outlets including websites like Fife Direct and a local magazine called St. Andrews in Focus. We have also advertised in our own newsletter, Twitter and Facebook pages. An open Facebook page was created to further boost interest with regular posts on environmental issues, green events and tips for reducing your carbon footprint. Carbon conversations was promoted alongside various community events, hosted many taster sessions and was endorsed via in-class shout-outs by students as well.

Specifically for Carbon Conversations Streets, numerous Fife-based community groups were contacted to gage potential interest among their members. The project was also endorsed alongside by directly contacting individual home-owners. For example, a home infrared survey was held where thermal images were taken of local homes and made available to home owners via an information event which included Carbon Conversations promotion. Likewise, a mail-out of informational letters with Carbon Conversations fliers was organised for homeowners who had previously worked with the St Andrews Energy group, StAndEn.

In an effort to appeal to people with a complicated lives and schedules, we are careful to always offer Carbon Conversations courses at a wide variety of times and will accommodate to groups which self-organise for a certain time and place.

Figure 3 New Promotional banner for Events showing positive images of people on course

c) Outcomes Since September 2015, 27 students and 3 local residents have gone through the Carbon Conversation course in 6 different groups. From this group we collected 12 carbon footprints. Many of the footprints are quite high, owing to the fact that most of our participants fly a great deal (often to see family), and commonly live in halls (where they eat a lot of animal products).

We then followed up all participants after 6 months with a request to complete a second carbon footprint. (Though it should be noted that the 13 participants currently enrolled in a Carbon Conversations course will not be sent the follow-up request until September 2016.) From this request we only received two footprints back even after sending out numerous email requests. The responses we did receive, though, do give us some idea of the influence of the course on participant’s emissions and how they have changed after the course. Our past successes on this front help us to feel confident that we will continue to see and track impressive carbon savings. As is typical in our experience, both participants we heard back from after 6 months lowered their carbon footprints. (One participant moved from 20.26 to 18.2, while the other went from 16.07 to 12.) Also, we received 6 month follow-ups early in the funding cycle from three participants who attended sessions in Feb. 2015. Their carbon footprints mirrored the pattern we see so often. Despite often flying to see family and living in accommodations that they are not free to upgrade, etc., these three also lowered their carbon footprints impressively after attending our sessions. (One participant went from 12.41 to 11.55, another from 18.71 to 8.25, and a third from 67.76 to 48.57.)

There have been a number of studies into the changes brought about to participant’s behaviours from attending a carbon conversations course. An earlier study in Oxford estimated carbon savings of around 1 tCO2e per year where as a more recent study by Southampton University showed this to be in the order of 4 tCO2e per year. As our groups tend to be students, we might expect that the opportunities to cut emissions might be lower, especially with regard to the changes that they can make within their household emissions. However, many of our participants have enormous carbon footprints relating to flying and these often are the easiest to change areas. Therefore, the 4.1 tCO2e average savings shown by this study might not be specific to St Andrews University, but is still valid.

But the CO2 savings don’t end once the sessions are over. Armed with knowledge and tools for change, participants often leave the sessions with plans in place to halve their individual footprints over a 4-5 year period. We work hard to encourage these changes by making energy monitors, shower timers, information about locally produced food, and wide variety of informational material available to participants. Additionally, we encourage participants to think about their long-term goals for lessening their impact by prompting them to make a series of incremental pledges. That way, they leave our sessions with a personal plan of action in hand. This, of course, was our main goal for Carbon Conversations, and our greatest achievement.

Use of Energy Monitors

Both Single appliance and household monitors (Current Cost) were used by some of our participants to inform them about change that could be made to their electricity consumption. These were

booked out at the beginning of the first session followed by a short induction on their use. They were used for 6 to 8 weeks without problems and then returned. Appliance monitors were well used by students in halls or homeowners wanting to find out about single appliance energy use such as fridges. In general, Energy Monitors were found to be useful tools for entering into discussion on home energy whilst allowing the user to explore different options for their household.

d) Facilitators As a testament to how successful and enjoyable our sessions are, many of our participants choose to complete our yearly, two-day training session in order to then facilitate Carbon Conversation sessions in the future. In fact, we held an additional training session in November 2016, and trained 7 more facilitators. In all, we have trained nearly 40 facilitators since 2012. These volunteers work hard to ensure that we can continue to offer these courses, and empower individuals to positively impact our environment through simple changes in their daily lives.

Like many who attend Carbon Conversations, our facilitators often become reliable fixtures at the various Transition events held throughout the year. Over and over, we see that Carbon Conversations tends to pave the way for involvement in other Transition projects by offering a framework for self-reflection and action. And this increased involvement extends beyond attendance at our events. Because going through the sessions and then the facilitator training has resulted in strong bonds, we have created a special Carbon Conversations Facebook page in order to maintain these links. The 58 members (and counting!) use the page to revisit issues faced in sessions and just generally to keep in touch.

e) Reflections In an effort to ensure that all aspects of the Carbon Conversations sessions are running as effectively as possible, we are careful to collect feedback from each group. The feedback we get clearly illustrates what cannot be easily articulated by numbers and charts: the kinds of changes people make in their everyday lives as a result of the information discussed in the various Carbon Conversations sessions, and how they feel about making those changes. A student submitted the following feedback in Fall 2014, and it is quite representative of the sentiments they tend to share with us:

“The biggest change I made because of Carbon Conversations is reducing my consumption of meat and fish to about one meal a week. I've also become more conscious of how long my showers are and time them with the 4 minute hourglass. I have also started

taking more train journeys; however, there doesn't seem to be an alternative for long distance flights.”

This last point speaks to an unfortunate truth about the majority of our participants: they simply aren’t at a point in their lives where they can make large-scale, heavy-impact changes in their daily lives. The vast majority of our participants are students, and they tend to have less power to change their energy consumption habits. Because many of them live in on-campus housing, they are not able to have a meaningful impact on energy usage in their places of residence, nor are they able to control what kinds of foods they are served. Though St. Andrews University tends to be quite concerned about food miles, the caterers are very dependent upon animal-based foods. As a result, many of our Carbon Conversations participants have needlessly large carbon footprints. Likewise, many of these students are quite far from home. While they tend to walk or bike around town, many of them fly quite a lot every year in order to see family and friends. Despite these limitations faced by the majority of our participants, though, we are generally very pleased with the positive impact the Carbon Conversations sessions are having on the people who are taking part. While our CO2 savings would likely be higher if the vast majority of our participants were homeowners, for example, who were ready and willing to make improvements to their homes, in addition to carbon saving measures related to food, general consumption, and travel habits, the long-term impact of young people concerning themselves with these issues can only be positive.

Since the last funding cycle, we have tried to be as responsive to the needs of our participants and facilitators as possible. One result of that responsiveness has been to implement a variety of modifications to our sessions. First, we’ve changed the location of our courses from all around the town to our own office. While it may be a little further for some of the participants, it was much easier for our volunteer facilitators, who no longer had to contend with lugging huge boxes of cups, kettles, teas, and sugar. Having participants meet us on our own turf Figure 4 New Promotional leaflet used a number of also had the unintended effect of making them feel social marketing techniques more connected to Transition and our other programs. Additionally, we’ve adapted some of the materials used in our sessions to accommodate students, and to be more responsive to local needs. We’ve also tried to make our facilitator‘s jobs a bit easier by creating hardcopies of all our resources in an effort to ensure that all they need is right at their fingertips. Likewise, we’ve changed over to an updated edition of the workbook that we give to all of the participants as we’ve found it to be better organised and generally more informative.

We receive a great deal of verbal feedback after our sessions. As with previous years, there is a high level of satisfaction with the majority of themes we cover, and especially the quality of facilitation, group discussions, and atmosphere/ refreshments. However, some participants have had specific issues with regards to the groups games. In particular the “House” game, as it tends to focus on being a home owner and the travel game, as it can be difficult to follow geographically. In 2013 we helped Surefoot to change the “house” game to become more focused on a tenant /landlord relationship which would be much more applicable to the majority of our participants.

Also, the course length/ timings proved to be a big area of concern with a number of people who felt that each session could be shorter, and that there could be more flexibility in being able to move between courses. We have tried to resist moving people between established groups too much in order to continue the group dynamics but this did happen on occasion without too much impact. We have not tried shorter sessions but feel this would be something to offer in the next session especially to workers. We are certainly open to offering drop-in sessions in the future, if it might result in more people going through the sessions.

Although each Carbon Conversations session is designed to run like a well-oiled machine, we did encounter difficulties. First, because St. Andrews experiences a rather pronounced Town and Gown divide, we often have trouble recruiting resident community members. That divide presents us with special challenges, and we are constantly focused on finding new ways to appeal to the local community, whilst maintaining our strong bond with the student body. Because our focus for the last four years has been on recruiting students, in particular, we decided to switch gears and, instead, focus our attention on the residents of St Andrews, on a street by street basis. We were excited about this shift, which was to be marked by the running of sessions in people’s homes, but had a very difficult time recruiting members of the community to take part. There will be a church group starting up sessions in a few weeks, though, so we are hopeful that the word will spread that we are happy to bring Carbon Conversations to whatever audience will have us.

Another difficulty we’ve faced is that we haven’t had much success in engaging students in a wide variety of disciplines. While we have a steady-stream of Sustainable Development students who take the course, we have a much harder time appealing to students in other departments. We are still trying to come up with ideas to remedy this because climate change, of course, impacts all of us. One tactic that we employed this last term, which seems to have generated a great deal of success was to simply have a student volunteer give mini presentations in all of her courses this term. We were very impressed by just how many students reached out to indicate their interest after hearing these in- class shout-outs. And because she was willing to give these presentations in all of her classes, we were able to get the word out to a variety of disciplines. f) Continuation of the project Through events and various other promotional avenues, we are continually receiving interest among St Andrews community members with many individuals signing up for information and to join courses. Taster sessions, promotion alongside pre-organised events and in-class shout-outs have been particularly successful in recruiting participants and so will be continued and expanded above other methods in the future. Uptake among community members has been slow to start, but we are confident it will continue to take off as the community becomes increasingly aware of Carbon 15

Conversations, especially by word-of-mouth. We have a strong facilitator and participant community that will continue to be held together both through Facebook and by regular meetings. We aim to continue the project well into the future and currently have ongoing courses as well as ones set to start soon. In transitioning towards being self-sustaining in funds, a £5 donation will be suggested to cover refreshments and books will be loaned out for the duration of the course unless participants wish to buy them. From now on, the Carbon Conversations project will be in the hands of a volunteer-intern and the rest of our dedicated facilitator team.

Table 1. Carbon Conversations 2015-2016 promotion, outcomes and future development overview.

Communications Date Outreach Outcomes Learning Points From surveys we know people are interested in climate change so possibly using more targeted posters and from Unknown; Continual poster promotional material that September likely and flyer distribution over 50 locations appeals to different community 2015 to increases throughout town groups while having something March 2016 awareness clear and repeated among the material such as a logo that immediately recognisable could help. Unknown, from Not much response from this Social media in though the September apart from the Facebook page news and online 15 media outlets Facebook 2015 to so expanding this more could local memos page is March 2016 help. growing Some interest an signups resulted from this, but could be Signups to from improved if classes were Promotion more September already sorted at the time of alongside pre- 9 events information 2015 to promotion which individuals organized events and to join March 2016 could be sorted into directly group rather than signing up to an interest / information list. Signups to from These seemed to really more September 8 sessions with 6 capture peoples interest, so Taster sessions information 2015 to people on average the more that are done the and to join March 2016 better. group 1st mail out: This wasn't as successful as Infrared survey and 8 referrals to event: 2nd 183 homes we had hoped, but some mail out StAndEn mail out: people were interested. Not much response from this either which could be because of timing. It would likely be 19th of StAndEn contacts better to hand homeowners a January 152 homes No response mail out Carbon Conversations flier 2015 during a home visit versus via mail which could be 2 years a StAndEn home visit. These had mixed results among students. It worked well Signups to from when they were given a more University lecture September Proposed shout- personal anecdote by one of information shout-outs 2015 to outs to 9 lectures their classmates and had a and to join March 2016 means to sign up right away group (standing with signup sheets after the lecture). Everyone welcome Many people were busy and so 10th of 5 individuals Facilitator meeting for 'green drinks' could not make it, but a nice March 2016 attended with specific focus social all the same. Having 17

to Carbon regular meetings to keep Conversations facilitators interested and facilitators involved is recommended still. These also had mixed results which seemed to largely come Set up taster down to the motivation of the from sessions and 18 Fife-based person contacted: if they were Community groups September promotion community groups interested in climate change, contacted 2015 to within and organizations they were more enthusiastic March 2016 community about spreading the word and groups setting up taster sessions than those that were not. Increased This worked nicely in interest spreading awareness among a Workshop (for among Late spring 35 students diversity of university Computer students with 2013 attended departments rather than solely Scientists) some reaching out to Sustainable enrolling in Development students. groups

Carbon Savings

Carbon Conversations STREETS

Number of x Average Footprint of = Baseline Participants Participants before taking Emissions /

during year the course tCO2e

27 x 10.3 = 278.1 Baseline

Number of x Average Footprint of = Scenario Participants Participants AFTER taking the /tCO2e

during year course

27 x 8.4 = 226.8 Scenario

Baseline - Scenario emissions / kgCO2e = Annual Emmisions / Savings/ kgCO2e tonnes of

CO2e

278.1 - 226.8 = 51.3 Savings

6) Carbon Conversation Schools a) Introduction Carbon Conversation Schools was set up to try and raise awareness of climate change of 16 year olds in St Andrews and empower them with the knowledge to make lifestyle changes both now and in the future. The course would follow similar topics as carbon conversation however due to the size of the groups the delivery was very different. Groups ranged in size from 18-25 depending on the class size. A series of interactive activities were substituted instead of discussions which were used to break up the presentations. b) Outputs A series of presentations were developed with accompanying documents for the weekly sessions. Folders were printed and issued to students at the first session, documents were added to the folders over the subsequent weeks. The lecture on Climate Change to students took place on 4nd Sept. Four weekly conversations (11th Sept – 2nd Oct) were delivered covering energy saving in the home, travel, and waste, with the final session on food and water. Each session lasted for 1 hour, 3 staff taking 2 sessions on each date reaching approximately 120 pupils. The final session in December collected date related to a reduction in their carbon footprint.

c) Outcomes SURVEY RESULTS

97 surveys handed out, 94 were returned completed.

65 students reported an increased awareness of the issues surrounding climate change

52 stated they had already changed their behaviour to reduce their carbon footprint. 27 of these reported making more than one behavioural change.

3 stated that they had not changed anything but as they felt they were already doing everything they could.

Of the 3 that stated they were not taking any action, 2 stated that they were already aware of climate change and had no intention of making any changes and 1 gave the reason that he felt that it would not happen in his life time so why worry about it.

The remaining 36 gave no reason for not taking action.

Data was also collected on individual actions taken see appendix Schools Carbon Calculations

We got to testimonials from Students

Danny, “I really learned a lot, my mum wants to thank you as well as she has been trying to get me to be more aware of my energy usage for some time however she says could you not have stopped there as now I insist on one vegetarian meal a week and constantly nag her about recycling.” 19

Eve “ A wonderful course which was very thought provoking, I never associated so many of my actions as being detrimental to the planet” d) Reflections On the whole the project went really well however we are trying to develop a more suitable survey/ data collection form to accurately report carbon savings. We were very pleased at the reports of the students putting pressure on their parents resulting in some actual installations. The savings from these are recorded along with the students savings as although these parents came to us for advice they lived outwith the rural post codes.

7) Bike Pool a) Introduction Bike pool was initiated by Transition UStA in 2012 following a Transition Open forum Event that identified high bike disposal rates in the town linked to poor bike condition. The project aimed to support cyclists to look after their own bikes by providing “peer to peer” bike maintenance sessions, tools and training. Following a more in depth survey in 2014 the group also identified a large number of people who were here for short periods of time (from 1month to a year) and who wanted access to a bike but did not want the hassle of buying and selling one. Alongside this was the need to support the development of cycle infrastructure in the town including the enhancement of route ways, cycle storage, bike security, cycle safety especially amongst non-UK cyclists and other physical barriers to cycling. To oversee the development of cycling in St Andrews Transition initiated the St Andrews Bike user Group and invited local residents, representative groups, local authority representatives University staff and cycling specialists to attend. So, over this period the remit of Bike Pool grew to encompass a much wider remit with the support of other funders, the council and University.

 Bike loan  Guardbridge park and Pedal  Infrastructure development  Investigation of new cycle route from Crail to St Andrews  Training of Bike Maintenance volunteers  Peer to Peer bike Maintenance session  Travel Behaviour programme b) Outputs

Training for Bike Maintenance Volunteers Bike Pool relies on a team of volunteers to help deliver the sessions. To ensure a good standard of basic bike mechanic skills in the volunteer team we offered a one day training course that covered all the basics. Nine sessions were offered over the year and these were attended by 22 people 4 of which were local residents.

We also funded 3 volunteers to go on to do the Velotech Silver accreditation in Edinburgh and a further person to undertake the gold level award.

Bike Pool Maintenance Session: These took place across the town at halls of residences, local events, and community venues and outside places of work throughout the year with a break in January. Trained volunteers, assisted by a professional bike mechanic, led 2 hours sessions where cyclists could bring their bikes and be assisted in repairing them. It was not a FREE bike maintenance sessions but rather an assisted sessions aiming to teach those attending how to undertake basic maintenance themselves. We held 50 bike Pool sessions this year which were attended by 464 people. A high number of these were single visits according to our sign in sheets. Most sessions took place in Halls of residences where the majority of bikes are stored with 7 sessions being held in the community at events or community venues.

Figure 5 Location of participants in Bike Pool session

The majority of bikes coming to bike pool were older than 4 years with a

significant number being over 10 years old. There was also a significant number of bikes under 1 year old that had been bought new (23%). With most students spending only 4 years in St Andrews this links in with a high number of second hand bikes being exchanged within the town and also the exchanges that take place amongst friends and family.

It was surprising that only a few of our rented bikes had been brought along to bike loan sessions. At the start of the loan participants were asked to attend a bike pool session 2 or 3 times a term to keep their bike in good condition.

Frequency of use

Most cyclsits are using their bike daily (75%) with less than 10% rarely using it. There bike is seen as a main form of transport in and around town.

Trip length

Not surprisingly, most cyclists are using

their bike for regular short trips within the town. The average distance travlled per week is around 12km with only a small number of cyclsits undertaking trips of over 5km a day for this group.

Bike Rental Following research in 2014 there appeared a need for long term bike rentals for students and staff at the university who were either interested in trying cycling or were in St Andrews for only a short period of time. Transition set out to develop a pool of 20 bikes that could be used to test this business idea and reduce the need for students / staff to buy new bikes which is associated with embedded carbon emmisiosns.

Following advertising through social media a steady trickle of second hand bikes came to the group. These were refurbished at skillshare events or by bike mechanics so that during the year we developed a pool of 60 bikes. The scheme was administered using a google doc embedded into the Transition Website so that customers could view which bikes were available and then make a payment through the Universities On-line shop along with a putting a deposit down.

Charges

Bike Deposit £50 1st Week (or part there-of) £15 2nd Week or there after £5 per weekCharges Single Smester £35 Two Semesters £55

Total income from Bike Pool rentals £1604 up to end of March 2016 witht the main income periods being around the start of term although shorter rentals were also popular for visiting lecturers and study abroad students.

8) Travel behaviour change Programme

Transition UStA aimed to provide personal travel planning to around 500 people in households and workplaces in relation to new car parking regulations, workplace changes and school movements. This project was to be delivered by a worker funded through the Smarter Choices Smarter Places programme.

Initial engagment was planned to take place at community events followed up through direct mail and doorstep engagement campaign. The project would work across a number of areas of influence applicable to the participants such as groups, schools, places of work and further education establishments. It will develop, alongside an experienced Travel Consultancy, resources and techniques based around the 4 E’s of promoting behaviour change: Enables Action through simple messages, recognition, supply and easy reporting, Exemplifies Action through providing practical advice, support and knowledge, Engages the community through targeting key people, groups and services to normalise behaviour , Encourages Action by offering easy and ‘low cost’ actions and physical improvements as well as continual support and encouragement in behavioural change a) Operation

Eight consultation sessions were held with members of the public between October 2015 and January 2016, engaging with a total of 49 people on sustainable transport. As an initial entry-point into discussion about travel behaviour, I spoke to individuals about a specific, typical journey that they took. Data was gathered on:

 The start and end points for the journey.  The mode of the journey.  The person’s rationale for using that mode.  What the participant liked and disliked about their journey. This was in order to find:  Current positive aspects of the journey that ought to be retained or emphasised when changing travel choices.  Current negative aspects of the journey that ought to be mitigated or solved by changing travel choices.

Using this as a base, I then discussed how the journey could be improved with reference to the likes and dislikes about the journey, with a view to also how that journey might be made more sustainably. Suggestions for change were proposed according to the hierarchy of travel modes for sustainability – walking and cycling; public transport; communal car (either through car-share or a car club); private car. In order to encourage action, we initially suggested the next mode up in the hierarchy from the mode they currently used, e.g. suggesting car-share for private car users.

We aimed to get each participant to make a pledge for the following month to improve the sustainability of their travel. This pledge was personalised to their own needs and expectations for what they could achieve. Examples included a Guardbridge resident who typically took the bus into St Andrews pledging to try cycling the route once in the following month, and a St Andrews resident who already incorporated his bike into journeys 1-2 times a week, to try and push to 3 times a week.

In total, five people agreed to a pledge in consultation sessions. In addition, one participant was introduced to Lade Brae’s Walk and was followed up, responding very positively. This was a disappointing figure, and largely came down to obstacles that people felt prevented them from improving the current state of their travel. Collecting these responses, the project increasingly turned towards data gathering on perceived and real obstacles to sustainable travel in St Andrews. Whilst this was and will be useful for the development of behaviour change messages for the town, it was not the final intention of the project, and so we decided to narrow our focus.

Many obstacles to behaviour change were to do with infrastructure or perception of infrastructure. We therefore decided to take Guardbridge road closures between 15th February and 29th March as an opportunity to promote cycling between Leuchars and St Andrews. One of the obvious differences between car and bicycle on this journey is time taken, but with the roadworks, this difference would cease to become meaningful. Our intention was that as this was no longer an obstacle to consider cycling, car travellers would be more likely to try it, and might then find new advantages to cycling the route that the car did not provide, such as physical and mental wellbeing.

We implemented this project in the following ways:

* Guardbridge Park and Pedal facility

 Linking up with the Environment Team of the University and Transition Bike Pool to deliver a ‘park and pedal’ storage facility, so that travellers could park their car in Guardbridge and pick up their bicycle to cycle into St Andrews. A selection of free loan bikes were provided, and support was provided with weekly mechanical assistance and led rides every Friday morning.  A Leuchars-St Andrews  Promotional material  We produced an infographic that was presented at road closure consultation events and distributed via social media, providing information on the cycle route and facilities:

Business engagement

41 businesses in St Andrews, primarily from the retail, dining, and hospitality industries, were offered free sustainable travel consultation for their staff. No businesses took up the offer, although Vineleaf Restaurant took a number of copies of the Leuchars-St Andrews cycle guides for the use of their staff during the closures.

These were some of the most frequently cited obstacles to sustainable travel from our research, alongside solutions we proposed.

 Bus  Expense of the St Andrews-Leuchars buses. This functioned as a general public transport obstacle both to bus and rail travel for commuters to St Andrews who might otherwise use the train.  We suggested taking advantage of saving schemes such as Megarider. However, this was either an insufficient saving in comparison to car travel, or too much money to sit alongside owning a car, which was still deemed useful.  Independence. Participants associated bus travel with a loss of independence in their travel plans, and a reliance upon timetables.  This was a problem of perception, and we tried to show how travel by any mode typically requires planning, and that bus travel simply needs a different form of planning.  We directed participants’ attention to the frequency of bus services. 25

 Need for flexibility with regards to work.  Connected to the issue of independence, specifically according to irregular working hours. In this situation, we suggested alternative car arrangements such as car club membership which would still meet the demand for flexibility.  Difficulty of using the bus stops on Main Street, Guardbridge. This was a specific issue for Guardbridge residents, particularly vulnerable road users such as parents with children or disabled travellers.

We forwarded these concerns to Colin Stirling, Traffic Management Lead Professional (North Fife) at Fife Council. Unfortunately, a pedestrian crossing was not considered possible for the bus stops in question, but consideration for traffic management was added to the Council’s potential projects in the future. b) OpenStreetMap

The Project

In mid-November, we held a starter session for an open mapping project in St Andrews that was focussed on sustainable travel. In our invitations we particularly recruited from students of the University’s Schools of Geography and Computer Science, and had an attendance of about 25 students and staff, including a representative from Fife Council. We introduced the concept of OpenStreetMap and some of its many derivatives such as CycleStreets, and set out the aims of the project:

 Survey St Andrews for geographic data that is relevant to sustainable travel, e.g. walking or cycling infrastructure.  Upload this data to the OpenStreetMap database.  Use the data to  Evaluate and improve existing infrastructure in conjunction with the University, Fife Council, and other key stakeholders  Develop new and innovative ways (such as software) to present and propagate this data for the benefit of the community and for all travellers in St Andrews, to promote sustainable travel in the town.

Operation

The project has its own user accounts on OpenStreetMap and CycleStreets,1 and the login details for this are shared with all members of the project, so as to make it easier to collate the data uploaded by the project.

Achievements

Some figures (data – neis-one.org)

 48 changesets (a changeset is a session of editing before saving the uploaded data, and may incorporate multiple changes within it)  148 nodes created  17 nodes modified  5 ways created

 15 ways modified  The focus of the project so far has been on cycle parking in the town. In total, the project has:  Uploaded 105 new cycle parking sites  Edited existing OSM data for 15 cycle parking sites  Uploaded 1,344 cycle parking spaces to OSM, and specified its type and whether it was covered in most cases:

 Total uncovered bike parking 748  Total covered bike parking 552  Total unspecified bike parking 44  Total bike parking 1344

Whilst focussing on cycle parking, the project has also made some significant additions to OSM data in other ways for sustainable travel.

 Added a new cyclepath to OSM – the Melville Road shared-use path.  Extended the existing cycle path on the Scores to reflect recent infrastructural changes.  Crossings are an important indicator of travel fluidity in urban areas. The project has:  Uploaded the toucan crossing to Hepburn Gardens.  Updated the street crossing’s status to ‘toucan’ at North Street.  Uploaded four pedestrian crossings at Market Street, Bell Street, and two on South Street.  Cycle access – Data that relates to what infrastructure bicycles can and cannot access is essential for the function of cycle routing applications, such as CycleStreets, as used by Cycle Fife.  Stipulated cycle access for the shared-use routes of College Street and Butts Wynd.  Defined The Pends as one way. This should prevent cycle routers that use OSM from giving cyclists a route on this road that is legally impossible.  Added bollards to the East Scores path. This is a reflection of a more ‘microscopic’ approach to cataloguing and uploading infrastructure for sustainable travel, with a more open-ended vision for what the data might be used for. At the present time, there is no application that uses data on features such as bollards, but, as bollards have an effect on accessibility, an online travel map for St Andrews in the future might include such features, as well as pavement sizes, availability of dropped kerbs, etc., to highlight pedestrian or cycle accessibility from a practical perspective in the town.  The project has made contact with oiko St Andrews, and is now looking at using the data from their St Andrews Bottle Project to upload data on drinking water locations in St Andrews, for the use of walkers and cyclists.

Challenges

The project has attracted the dedicated enthusiasm and participation of about five individuals, who have made most of the progress on the project’s achievements in terms of surveying and mapping data. We keep every attendee to that session (and others who have since become interested) updated via an email and Facebook group, but this has not followed through to attendance at surveying events, although this does not prevent them from surveying and updating the map in their own time. This is probably partially due to the timing of the project’s start, towards the end of the first semester, causing interest to become dormant over the Christmas break when many people were not in the town.

Future actions

The OpenStreetMap project now has a small, dedicated group of individuals who know how to use the software and are actively using it to increase and propagate existing data for sustainable travel infrastructure in St Andrews. There is now an opportunity for expansion both of community involvement and activities. Recommended actions going forward are:

 A refresher session of core active members, plus interested postgraduates, staff, and town residents in April-May, with two main aims:  Evaluate and celebrate current progress of the project  Plan for the operation of the project over summer  Discuss potential actions or projects that could come out of the data collected thus far. This would particularly benefit from input from the University’s Geography and Computer Science Schools.  A (re-)recruitment session to bring original members back to active involvement and to recruit new student interest. This would best be scheduled for fresher’s week/September to capitalise on the enthusiasm of new students and to allow for a full semester of regular activity. This would incorporate most of the activities in the session above, but curated for a wider, less knowledgeable audience.  Promotion of the project’s activities to the wider community  This may or may not be incorporated into the wider St Andrews sustainable travel ‘brand’.  One of the most exciting potentials of the project is that it has the capacity to help launch and support wider initiatives for local community organisation. The project could form part of a campaign to get individual members of the town/gown community to upload non-travel data from their own user accounts. From this data, maps and other media could be produced that highlighted or reflected real grassroots knowledge and concerns about the local area, a bottom-up ‘People’s Map’.  Begin using the Diary function on OpenStreetMap to promote our work within the international open mapping community and make contact with users undertaking similar work to share learning on open mapping.  Push the use of the St Andrews CycleStreets to match the achievements of OpenStreetMap project and to generate a body of locally produced data of pain and pleasure points in the town’s travel infrastructure.  One of the main actions that can be done with photos is to tweet them, so this would require a project Twitter account.  Apart from Twitter and the Twitter-style ‘Tinkle’ interface that goes between CycleStreets users, there are not many ways for other users to interact with a photo. One function to consider implementing in collaboration with CycleStreets is a system similar to Facebook likes that will allow users to upvote or downvote photos that reflect their own interests or concerns. c) Guardbridge Park and Pedal The closure of the A92 at Guardbridge for for an expected period of 10 weeks provided an opportunity to develop a Park and Pedal scheme using the Bike Pool Loan bikes. Working alongside the University Estates team, Transition UStA moved 20 loan bikes to a new bike park facillity at Guardbridge funded by Smarter choices Smarter Places. The scheme attracted 18 notes of interest but there was also a number of cyclists who just wanted a place to park their car and cycle in to work. Bikes were made available for free with a £50 deposit.

10 bikes were hired out from the scheme and the survey responses indicated a varying degree of usage with one person not using the bike at all right up to 3 avid users who did extra miles.

I’ve been using it regularly (27 days) and with a few days out of the office here and there it’s averaging out at me cycling the equivalent of 4 days a week. Most I’ve done on a single day is 15.5 miles where I added a journey out along the beach and back at lunchtime and also have been adding some additional loops around Leuchars at the end of the journey home on some days. (Stats below all courtesy of my handy iphone app!) Phil Pass – University of St Andrews

Week No of miles cycled 1 47 2 36 3 36 4 27 5 38 6 33.5 7 34.5

Total 252 (ave: 36/week)

During the period of closure automatic bike counts show a rise from 20 bikes to around 45 bikes passing the Strathtyrum counter per day. Weekday traffic tended to be higher than weekends indicating a good number of commuters using this route

d) Outcomes

Car displacement Guardbridge Park and Pedal: The Guardbridge park and pedal scheme directly displaced car journeys being made between Guardbridge and St Andrews over an 8 week period for those taking up the park and pedal scheme. Surveys of bike users and direct counts indicate an increase in bike traffic from a baseline of 20 per day to 45 per day during this period (fife council continuos monitor). Whilst some of this might be due to improved weather we do have evidence from park and pedal cyclists that they made a definite switch due to the scheme we offered.

From the surveys and annecdotal evidence from the 8 participants in the scheme we found a big difference in bike usuage. Diaries kept by two particpants showed that they used bikes instead of a single occupancy car on 12 and 27 days. They also stressed that the service was really good but that the bike quality let the scheme down. One particpants responded:

I am 6'2" and weigh 16 stones. The bike is too small. The bike does not have mudguards, so using it in the wet would result in needing a change of clothes. Overall, the bike is not great quality, but is free, and certainly usable for the distances involved. I would think carefully before paying money to lease it for a longer term

A conservative estimate would be that the other 6 particpants used the bikes once a week (replacing 6 car journeys. This gives a total car journey distance displaced as 1131 km or 433kgCO2e

Guardbridge park and pedal Journeys per week 13 distance/km 14.5 duration of trial 6 total Km 1131 Average car Emissions factor/kg CO2e km-1 0.38293 Total savings / kgCO2e 433

The Bike Pool - A large number of respondants (92%) said that thier bike replaced a journey being taken by car. If we consider that the majority of respondents are students who will be using their bike during the 8 months of term time, probably mainly during weekdays, then we get an estimate of the “trips” that would be taken.

Frequency Respondants % of respondants Extrapolated to bike pool (646Events particpants) cumulative frequency Daily 12 46 298 150 44723 Weekly 8 31 199 30 5963 Monthly 4 15 99 7 696 Never 2 8 50 0 0 Annual Number of Trips 51382 Bike pool total 646 Average Weekly Journey length /km 12 Average car Emmisions factor/kg CO2e km-10.38293 Total savings / tCO2e 236

When this is multiplied up by the average length of trip and DEFRA emmisions factor for the average car we get a CO2e saving of 236tCO2e per year

Competance Particpants were asked to rank their competence in bike maintenance at each session so that we might demostrate a shift in particpants abillity to maintain their own bikes

No Experience Novice Competent Expert Total 42 75 21 14 Q3 23 42 12 8 Q4 19 33 9 6

Over the year there does not appear to be any marked improvement as shown by the similar shape of the curves between Q3 and Q4. Part of this is due to the low number of repeat attendees but it may indicate that attendees need further prompting or help to move up a band.

There was also a small, 4%, but significant number of attendees who reported being worried or not competent about cycling in St Andrews. When we asked a similar question to those renting bikes the proportion shifted to 20% and as a corresponding greater interest in coming on led ride events

Another important measure for the scheme was the improvement in bike condition following a visit. Particpants were again asked to rank theiir own bikes condition before and after a visit.

Before After 1. un-rideable 7 0 2. poor 13 1 3. good 8 10 4. Excellent 0 16 Average 2.0 3.6

There was an obvious shift in condition with the average person reporting an improvement of 1.5 ranks as a result of attending bike pool session.

Particpants confidence in maintaing thier bike also improved by around one place on average.

Before After 5 not competent 5 3 4 un-sure 5 1 3 OK 7 5 2 competent 7 8 1 very competent 2 8 Average rank 3.2 2

Bike Condition Survey To back up the findings from the surveys at Bike pool stations we also sampled 13 bike storage facillities across the University counting between 280 and 912 bikes each time. This showed a dramatic trend over the year with less bikes being un-ridable or in poor condition. With around 600 bikes coming through bike pool maintenance sessions and the associated shift in bike condition recorded by the sessional surveys we expect that the scheme has directly improved bike condition across the University.

We estimate the total bikes on campus at 1290 through sampling 19 sites on a single day

Total number of spaces 1793 Sites sampled 19 Average Occupancy / % 72

Estimated total bikes 1290

Un-ridable bikes have a high chance of being abandoned and removed for disposal. Our initial estimate was for 33% of bikes to be abandoned each year but our survey found that only 20% of bikes was in this catergory at the start of the project which tallies with the removals made by police and the university as being between 100 to 200 bikes per year.

This allo ws us to esti mat e the nu mb er of bike s und er each bike condition catergory as follows.

un- rideable Good % poor % % 15-May-15 693 333 260 15-Sep-15 893 218 188 12-Feb-16 973 144 141 03-Mar-16 1009 177 104 Difference 316 -156 -156

If all the bikes in the un-ridable catergory were abandoned or dispossed we estimate the the project has saved around 156 this year from joinging the scrap pile! Our emmisions saving scenario estimated that we would save around 22 bikes through the scheme saving around 9 tCO2e.

1) Bike Initiative - Increasing bike life -emmisions reductions

Number of x Chance of bike Average = Baseline bikes owned by being disposed embedded Emissions /

particpants in of annually emission for kgCO2e Baseline bike standard bike maintenance / kgCO2e

100 x 0.33 x 384 = 12672

Number of x Chance of bike Average = Scenario bikes owned by being disposed embedded /kgCO2e

particpants in of annually emission for Scenario bike standard bike maintenance / kgCO2e 100 x 0.1 384 = 3840

Baseline - Scenario x Convert kg to = Annual Emmisions / emissions / tonnes / Savings/

Savings kgCO2e kgCO2e 1000 tonnes of CO2e 12672 - 3840 x / 1000 = 8.832

The survey data and assumptions give an estimate closer to 60 tCO2e

Bikes Average Total Conversion prevented from embedded CO2e to tCO2e being Un- emissions per saved/kg ridable bike / kgCO2e CO2e 156 384 59904 59.904

Total Emissions Savings for Bike Pool

Actual Savings 1) Increasing x Lifetime = Lifetime bike life - annual Savings Savings / savings/ tonnes Estimate / yrs KgCO2e of CO2e 59.9 5 299.5 2) Bike x Lifetime = Lifetime maintenance Savings Savings / and Guard Estimate / yrs KgCO2e bridge Car displacement - annual savings/ tonnes of CO2e 236.433 5 1182.165 3) Bike Loan Car x Lifetime = Lifetime displacement - Savings Savings / annual savings/ Estimate / yrs KgCO2e tonnes of CO2e Included above 5

Lifetime Project Total 1481.665 Annual total 296.333

9) Remote Housing Power Down a) Introduction Remote Housing Power Down was a very specific project targeting 598 Rural isolated properties which were off the gas grid. We had noticed from our records that very few of these households had engaged with the previous projects. Since all the properties were reliant on either oil or LPG there were great opportunities for carbon savings. We set a target of making some contact with all addresses and making lifetime savings of approximately 602 tonnes of CO2. b) Outputs We have made contact with all 598 households at least once, in some cases this was by letter. We held our Sustainable Fair in October even though it was no longer funded by CCF and dropped fliers into 567 of these properties. We brought along installers of renewable heat technologies and inviting all interested parties to attend. We carried out visits and gave energy advice to 289 households. We collected both details of measures installed and actual savings made. For this report we have used the figures for the measures installed as the other figures were very inaccurate as many of those reporting savings were guessing how much less oil or LPG they had used. We also collected data on the measures householders were committed to installing as many of these will take place over the next couple of months. c) Outcomes Through our work with the Cambo Estate we are pleased to say they are going ahead with the installation of a 50 kw wind turbine and we are now developing the idea of a solar field with them. The estimated annual output for this turbine is 145 MWh saving 85.5 tonnes of co2e per year in addition to the saving recorded in the spread sheet. Assuming a 20 year life this equates to an additional 1710 tonnes of co2e. The biggest uptake was for LED lighting which can show considerable savings. One Biomass boiler was installed as a first time heating system replacing coal fires, figures not available for the carbon savings. Only one Biomass boiler has been installed in replacement of an oil system to date but three more have been committed to, I am confident that these will go ahead as the householders are well down that road. Five households upgraded existing boilers rather than opting for renewables as a direct result of the low oil price at the time. Full table of calculations in excel spreadsheet called for CCF report 2016 d) Reflections The major barrier to the uptake of the heat technologies was falling oil prices although now that prices have started to rise again some householders are rethinking the stance they took this year. Reporting savings was also more difficult as few householders could be accurate about previous oil/LPG usage or the savings made, they gave us estimates which is why we went down the path of calculating savings from measures installed rather than the energy savings reported.

We were very pleased with the amount of contact we had with these householders although we would have preferred to have spoken to all of them this was not achievable in the one year time scale. By being very careful of how we arranged our visits and in the posting information out to 37

householders where necessary we were able to keep our mileage down. Many of the householders greatly appreciated the fact that we brought samples and information to them in their own homes and each visit was more like a mini information event as well as an audit.

10) StAnd Reuse Town a) Introduction StAnd Reuse Town was set up to meet the needs of both the students living in private rented accommodation and the residents of the town that complain about the amount of rubbish left behind when the students move out. Students were able to book a pick up from their property and the items were collected and taken away for weighing and sorting.

A booking system was established which will be used again this year. b) Outputs StAndEN sorted out the goods it collected from the private rented student accommodation. Apart from the clothing which was donated to the Glenrothes foodbank (the only foodbank with an attached cloth bank) this was all redistributed at the Green Fair during Freshers week in September. This was all redistributed at the Green Fair during Freshers week in September. c) Outcomes Household goods re-used, these were diverted from landfill sites as we know that the landlords simply skip all that is left in the flats due to the quick turn-around time for these properties being used as holiday lets. .

The resulting savings was 2.88 tonnes CO2e

St And Re-use Town 2015 - private rented sector Embodied Emissions of Goods/Materials Small WEEE (Waste Electrical & kg of virgin material Electronic Equipment) 42.9 production 1.760 75.504 Large WEEE (excluding fluorescent kg of virgin material tubes) production 1.266 0 kg of virgin material Textiles and footwear 108.4 production 22.310 2418.404 kg of virgin material Aluminium 6.8 production 9.844 66.9392 kg of virgin material Steel 8.4 production 2.708 22.7472 kg of virgin material Mixed cans production 4.778 0 kg of virgin material Scrap metal 11.4 production 3.082 35.1348 plastic bottles (Average rigid kg of virgin material plastics used - HDPE and PET) 22.5 production 3.281 73.8225

plastic bags (average plastic film kg of virgin material used - LLDPE) production 2.591 0 kg of virgin material Wood 63.2 production 0.666 42.0912 kg of virgin material Paper 9.7 production 0.955 9.2635 kg of virgin material Card 8.6 production 1.038 8.9268 kg of virgin material Books 36.13 production 0.955 34.50415 kg of virgin material Aggregates production 0.008 0 kg of virgin material Glass (colour separated) 15.2 production 0.895 13.604 kg of virgin material Glass (Mixed) production 0.895 0 kg of virgin material Food production 3.590 0

Emissions from Landfilling Small WEEE 42.9 kg waste to landfill 0.017 0.7293 Large WEEE (excluding fluorescent tubes) kg waste to landfill 0.017 0 Textiles and footwear 108.4 kg waste to landfill No data Aluminium 6.8 kg waste to landfill 0.021 0.1428 Steel 8.4 kg waste to landfill 0.021 0.1764 Mixed cans kg waste to landfill 0.021 0 Scrap metal 11.4 kg waste to landfill 0.020 0.228 plastic bottles (Average rigid plastics used - HDPE and PET) 22.5 kg waste to landfill 0.034 0.765 plastic bags (average plastic film used - LLDPE) kg waste to landfill 0.034 0 Wood 63.2 kg waste to landfill 0.792 50.0544 Paper 9.7 kg waste to landfill 0.580 5.626 Card 8.6 kg waste to landfill 0.580 4.988 Books 36.13 kg waste to landfill 0.580 20.9554 Aggregates (rubble) kg waste to landfill 0.000 0 Glass (colour separated - assumed remelt) 15.2 kg waste to landfill 0.000 0 Glass (Mixed - assumed go to aggregates) kg waste to landfill 0.000 0 Food kg waste to landfill 0.450 0

TOTALS 2884.60665 2.88 tonnes Not included Mixed material ie jewellery etc 9.7 Crockery 48.4

d) Reflections The results of this were disappointing considering the number of students living in private rented accommodation. We felt that we could have promoted it better and promotion is already underway for this year. We also were unable to make some of the pickups due to the very short notice given by some of the students, in one case we were contacted at 10:30 in the morning for someone leaving at midday. Were we were able to pick up items we got a lot of very good quality items with plenty of life left in them. We got one printer which we are still using in our office.

11) Edible Campus a) Introduction The Edible Campus aimed to increase its size and yield during this year as well as provide a route to market for local food through setting up a food hub. As the project is quite mature we wanted to focus on improving our record collecting and show the value of the project in terms of community engaged, health and biodiversity alongside growing lots of tasty veg. A student intern worked with us for 4 weeks of the summer to undertake research into this and plot the sites on to GIS along with other biodiversity types (see appendix 1 and 2)

Carbon reduction Outcomes Eating locally grown food has a number of benefits alongside carbon savings including health, personal Main Outputs development, enhancing local biodiversity and amenity. In  Held over 190 led gardening terms of carbon savings we are assuming that food grown session with746 volunteers locally displaces food that would otherwise have been  Held annual Edible St Andrews grown in a remote, commercial setting which incurs POW WOW Mini conference increased energy costs in the agricultural practices (use of pesticides fertilizers and mechanisation), storage,  Increased yield and improved processing and transportation. There is also increased recording carbon savings when food has been grown in heated  Student Intern mapped gardens greenhouses with artificial lighting which has been and studied impact of project on estimated by projects such as earlier CCF funded project participants Transition Black Isle Powerdown.

Original Estimates of Project carbon Savings Amount of fruit x Average emission = Baseline & vegetables factor for emissions purchased purchased fruit & vegetables

1200 kg x 2.09 kgCO2e = 2508 kgCO2e

Grown in Allotment grown Baseline Allotments fruit and veg Scenario

1200 kg x 0.54 kgCO2e = 648 kgCO2e

Baseline - Scenario x Convert kg to t = Annual Savings emissions emissions

2508 kgCO2e - 648 kgCO2e x / 1000 = 1.86 tonnes of CO2e

Greenhouse grown produce The yield for hothouse vegetables was down this year from the 85kg grown in 2014 to only 30 kg. A study by Transition Black Isle (Grow North) proposed that hot house vegetables grown in Scotland have a much greater carbon emissions savings than field crops due to these usually being grown either in inefficient heated greenhouses in the UK or flown from abroad. They estimate an emissions factor of 3.55kgCO2e for hot house vegetables rather than 2.09KgCO2e for allotment grown veg.

Baseline Emmisions - Scenario emissions / x Convert kg to = Annual Savings/ tonnes of / kgCO2e kgCO2e tonnes / 1000 CO2e

Savings 177.5 - 27 x / 1000 = 0.1505

b) Outputs

Communication The problem of coordinating activities across the 11 sites is tackled through having a Garden leader who can disseminate information and encourage participation. Facebook continues to the main route to communicate across all sites though and we have 6 pages allocated to individual gardens.

Events and Activities Regular growing sessions are timed to best work with the volunteers at each site. This is complemented by training sessions help at locations such as the botanic gardens or at specific sites where work is required.

Many potential volunteers cannot make core times though, so a simple rule should be that anyone entering a garden should be able to find a job to do or food to harvest. This requires each site to have a garden leader who can regularly update a jobs list as well as an information point and recording sheets.

The project continues to develop and promote the web based platform GrowVeg to help plan and coordinate the gardens. This allows all our garden leaders to produce plans that can be printed out to display on-site or emailed to a group. The tool allows you to select over 50 different fruit and veg plants as well as giving a colour guide for crop rotation and companion planting. New gardens are set up on growveg early on to allow the volunteers time to play with designs before tackling the space.

Orchard Survey TransitionUStA is acting as a local coordinator of the National Orchard Inventory for Scotland by holding training events and working with volunteers to coordinate survey work. During December 2015 we advertised for volunteer survey workers to help us map the orchard in the East Fife area up Leven and Leuhcars. We had 12 people attend our training sessions and then allocated sites that were selected from a desktop survey. This was followed up by further discussions with landlords to identify more sites. So far 12 sites have been surveyed with more planned in the spring.

Coordinating Our aim for each garden was that they become self-managing after an initial period of support, whilst relying on a pool of advice and resources from across the edible campus. The key feature of this scheme was for each 42

site to have a designated garden leader under the Transition Volunteering scheme. These volunteers tended to be undergraduates but there were also some wardens and post graduates who took on the role. Many of them have developed not only excellent site plans but gone on to develop their own garden blogs, undertake permaculture courses, fundraise, organise events and even carry out presentations about their gardens. They really have been inspirational to all those that visit the garden spaces and harvest the food grown there in.

Celebrating and sharing Our gardens are not only sites to grow veg in but also to enjoy and socialise in. There have been many events held in the gardens to promote the activity but also share the space. Garden events have included collaborations with music societies, craft, arts and halls groups. Many of the spaces are now well used by staff at lunchtimes or for break-out meeting spaces. We have also hosted garden sessions with a number of schools and community groups (Lawhead PS, nursery groups, Cosmos afterschool club and Child and Families First support group) as well ran walking presentations for University study groups and visitors. Albany Park garden has featured within the towns submission to the regional and national “In Bloom” completion for the last 3 years with visits from groups of judges twice each summer.

Our food is shared among keen gardeners but also given away to students and other local residents. There has been a couple of stalls this year outside the library to give away freshly picked produce as well as promoting our events and generally engaging people in discussions about our project, local food growing and exchanging recipes. We have teamed up with student society VegSoc to cook a number of dishes such as soups and curry’s to give away to students during exam time as a warming winter treat.

POW WOW With many gardens operating independently we developed an annual gathering of food growers, now in its 3rd year, from across the town called the Edible Campus POW WOW. This attracted many local residents along with our garden leaders, volunteers, students and staff. We also brought in guest speakers from the Federation of City Farms and community gardens, commercial growers (Truebaby, mircro-growers), St Andrews Botanic Gardens, Hotel grounds staff and University Grounds staff. Each garden presents its growing plan for the year as well as reviewing the highs and lows of the last season. A final harvest total is presented along with a discussion on the main issues for the project to tackle in the year ahead. By having professional growers and support agencies attending we have made the group far more active and aware of the wider opportunities c) Outcomes The Edible Campus has given residents and workers access to growing space across the town that would otherwise have been maintained as high maintenance and low diversity grassland. Overall it

has achieved or exceeded its targets for food growing and gardens created whilst showing that food growing is a popular, healthy and educational pursuit. It has also demonstrated that there is considerable added value to providing space to grow food within a university setting in terms of reducing stress and encouraging physical exercise across the community.

2015 Harvest

YEAR Kilos grown t CO2 Saved

2012 25 .04

2013 520 0.736

2014 612 0.945

2015 730 1.16

All our gardens are provided with a set of measuring tools to record harvest and, in general, these are well used. Some sites struggle with recording food due the recording tools being held in an office or room. This was changed this year by providing each garden with an all weather, re-used, container where all the measuring kits could be held. This, along with more guidance, helped people to record more information than before.

As usual, the harvest is dominated by heaviest crops such as potatoes and apples but there is considerable diversity and high value products such as herbs, lettuces and soft fruits being harvested in abundance. We try to stay focused on high value but easy to grow crops or things that you cannot buy in the shops. For example, over the last 3 years we have planted over 120kg of Rhubarb crowns across the site and these produced 27kg of Rhubarb in 2015. We also had a much bigger yield of beans and soft fruits than previous years although salads were down considerably.

Figure 6 Total harvest 730kg

Table 3 Edible Campus outcomes summary table

Target Outcome Indicators Information collected by Result 750 kg of food produced Weight of produce from all Spring balance weighting Total Harvest from all sites (excluding hot house) = after 3 years growing sites – 730kg scales in each garden to 700kg weight produce as picked 700kg grown outside 30kg of hot house produce Different food types Hot house veg = 30kg = measured separately so 50kg grown in hot house that further analysis can Carbon Savings be undertaken ie root veg, leaf veg , beans Total Carbon Savings = 1437kg /peas, fruits Create new gardens on Creation of new sites Sign off by land owner Operate on 13 different sites University land: following transition work Launch event 481m2 of land in production Created 1 new growing space at Agnes Blackadder hall

Improve town and gown Number of community Site induction will ask for 13 member of the community accessed different relations and build strong members accessing home address of gardens long-lasting community gardens on University participants 2 schools groups accessed in good weather ties group 2 non-university groups regularly use gardens in Summer (families first and cosmos Centre) Registration at each Through on-site diary/ garden folder growing session with times One “showcase” garden Sign off by land owner Albany Park has been entered for 3 years running exhibit within St Andrews Launch event in Bloom Additional measures 1. ‘Garden ambassadors’ Number of Ambassadors Transition volunteers 2013 – 1 garden leader from local community to induction 2014 - 8 garden leaders take charge (mechanism Garden leaders meeting 2015 – 10 garden leaders for passing on knowledge minutes and skills)

Surveys of garden Survey and results survey undertaken demonstrates value of gardens participants at beginning of Interviews with for exercise, knowledge and social benifits. Wider Wider behaviour change engagement, then 6 particpants pro-environmental behaviours and health benefits around sustainable food months and 1 year later, to Site mapping appear to be seen too. –See Appendix Error! choices analyse wider sustainable Reference source not found. food choices indicating behaviour change

1) Edible St Andrews - Veg growing Emissions savings

Amount of fruit & vegetables x Average emission factor for shop bought = Baseline Emissions /

purchased/kgCO2e Fruit and Veg / kgCO2e kgCO2e

700 x 2.09 = 1463 Baseline Amount of fruit & vegetables grown x Average emission factor for allotment = Baseline Scenario

by project /kgCO2e grown fruit & vegetables /kgCO2e /kgCO2e

700 x 0.54 = 378 Scenario Baseline Emmisions / kgCO2e - Scenario emissions / kgCO2e x Convert kg to tonnes = Annual Savings/ tonnes of

/ 1000 CO2e

1463 - 378 x / 1000 = 1.085 Savings

2) Edible St Andrews - Hot House Veg growing Emissions savings

Amount of fruit & vegetables x Average emission factor for shop bought = Baseline Emissions / ref: community powerdown purchased/kgCO2e Hot House veg / kgCO2e kgCO2e 2009 study on CO2e savings for

polytunnel growing

30 x 3.55 = 106.5 Baseline Amount of greenhouse vegetables x Average emission factor for polytunnel = Baseline Scenario

grown by project /kgCO2e grown vegetables /kgCO2e /kgCO2e

50 x 0.54 = 27 Scenario Baseline Emmisions / kgCO2e - Scenario emissions / kgCO2e x Convert kg to tonnes = Annual Savings/ tonnes of

/ 1000 CO2e

106.5 - 27 x / 1000 = 0.0795 Savings

d) Learning and reflection Any funded project that requires land also requires permission for use and this can be complex and time consuming. Growing within university settings can provide a very quick route to land or not depending often on the individuals involved. Fortunately at St Andrews we had a very supportive Estates Director, grounds staff and halls residents managers who made the process of gaining permission a lot easier. There are still some issues regarding members of the community accessing the land that we need to address and have approached the community land advisory service for assistance.

Getting things going  Map out the process for gaining site permission and get this signed off by the person in charge. Provide a package of information that will allow gardens to develop with support rather than you leading  Seasonality – develop planting plans that reflect the times when the main volunteer / harvesting force are about  Build a workforce from all sections of the community to ensure that plots don’t get left untended – especially during the main growing seasons.  Use online allotment planning tools like grow veg to make it easy for novices to plan spaces and share their ideas.  Promote the use of site during the evenings and weekends to non-students to encourage working people and families to use the gardens and eat the food.  Create a program of activities that covers practical demonstrations, information sharing, single tasks (ie build a shed), planning and report writing.  Look for opportunities to extend the growing season through using any available heated and well lit space. This has to be accompanied by making sure someone is responsible for watering and checking you’re your seedlings as they grow.

On site  Give everyone an induction to the garden and, alongside health and safety, make them feel they can take on some tasks on their own through providing plans, signage and information.  Make sure first time visitors take away some food and weight it!  Grow organic and encourage permaculture principals where possible. We found that our permaculture patch became too difficult to communicate to all users so reverted to a 4 step rotation  Ensure you are growing food that is wanted by those likely to eat it but also make sure people try new food and give them recipe ideas to think about  Pest control cannot be overlooked – all our sites have rabbits and pigeons which need guarding against. It’s so sad seeing all that work disappear  Don’t let weeds get hold – use membranes, mulches and hard work to keep them back. Or if that fails move to a different system like forest gardening that will require less intensive methods  Keep the soil covered through as much of the year as possible and look after it.  Use good, eye-catching labelling and signage so that people know what it is we are growing and what is ready to harvest. 12) Bringing a Car Club to St Andrews a. Introduction

Transition UStA worked with national support agency, Carplus, and local partners, including the University, to bring a car club to St Andrews in March 2015. After taking a lead on promoting the scheme and initating the project we recognised the need to assist with the development of the scheme so that it became part of a new travel norm for St Andrews. The funding came through the Developing Car Clubs in Scotland (DCCS) program to expand public access to shared car club EVs and support the electrification of existing car club schemes through the introduction of new car club EVs. The project started with 10 EVs run by the E-Car Club. Transition UStA aimed to provide support with promoting the scheme within and outwith the University whilst assisting with the role out of electric charging infrastructure which was so important to the success of the project

b. Outputs

At the project launch in February 2015 we had installed 4 dual charge points at 3 university locations towards the western edge of St Andrews. Transition UStA worked with the estates department to try and identify further sites within the University but also to encourage other options such as on-street parking or leasing of private parking bays.

The cars were also used extensively by Transition UStA for events and activities to replace conventional vehicle use. This was particularly true during the St And Re-use collections

Our survey of University school secretaries identified 3 departments (Physics, Student Services and Residential Services) that would benefit from the scheme as they had high costs associated to short term rentals that did under 100 miles. There was also 2 other departments who would use the cars if they were able to pick passengers up from the airport easily (47 Miles) which is possible given the cars have an 80 mile range and there are rapid chargers at the airport. Some staff also approached us directly to investigate car use (Chaplaincy, Student Services and individuals from various departments)

The University finance team were keen to run a trail of the e-car system at Physics and chemistry using a one card system rather than role it out across the whole univeristy. They also required each department to have a single card rather than personal cards. This added an additional administrational burden to the process where rather than book, collect and drive you had to book with school and then book with e-car before collecting and driving. The trial is ongoing but uptake has been fairly low from staff.

The main issue has been with increasing the number of EV charge points to give better coverage across the town. All cars are based in the west of the town at present whilst previous surveys showed that the main demand would be in the south and central area. Four new sites were investigated but funding for the posts had ran out by October 2015 meaning we put on hold further developments until spring 2016.

Figure 7 Green charge points are existing and blue are under discussion

c. Outcomes

Bookings have risen steadily over the year since launch. During the first 2 quarters we saw bookings dropping rapidly over the summer as students were on holiday only for demand to increase in the Autumn when they returned.

Recently bookings have shot up though as the scheme appears to have become established amongst students. During the first week of April 2016 we saw 45 bookings being made in one week against 40 being made for the whole of October 2015 (400% increase).

The scheme has a large membership but, as with other clubs, there will be a proportion of people who have never accessed the vehicles.

Members: 318 Members

Bookings: 774 Bookings

Hours Booked: 6080 Hours

Average Hours Booked: 7 Hours

Mileage: 24896 Miles

Average Mileage: 32.2 Miles

Figure 8 E-car Summary for year one

Figure 9 First week of April 2016 e-car bookings

Carbon Savings We estimated that there were 3 routes for reducing carbon emissions associated with the car club.

Savings/ For 40 members Before After tCO2e

1. Reduction in purchase of new cars 89600 0 90 2. Private car use displacement 70400 39732 31 3. University car use displacement 2022.4 1630.56 0 Total saved 121

The actual figures from e-car show that the distance travelled by their 140 member was much less than that travelled by the average car club members (7700 km). this is to be expected given that the membership was within its first year and that many members were students rather than staff. As it is an all-electric car club there might also be fundamental differences in the journey lengths being made by members. At this initial stage in the car clubs set up we were not able to discern if car club membership had prevented private vehicle purchase except one anecdotal story which came from a local resident. Therefore emissions savings are based purely on distance travelled by e-car during the year at this stage

Distance displaced Average Emissions from Total/tCO2e by E-car members/ car E-car EV / kg km emissions CO2e factor KgCO2e / km 40233 0.16 0 6.43728

13) Staffing

Staff team Most of our staff are part time which allows us to employ a range of people who might be studying or have other commitments. They often provide good value and go beyond their remit to achieve the projects.

Name Role Funded by Dates of work

Alistair Macleod (CCF) Project manager Climate Challenge July 2012 to present Fund

Georgina Stutchfield Transition University University of St March 2013 to Feb 2016 Projects Officer Andrews

Al Reeve Transition University University of St October 2014 to Feb 2016 Projects Officer Andrews

Andrea Roach Edible campus Project Climate Challenge October 2014 to present Worker Fund

Kat Fox Carbon Conversation and Climate Challenge October 2014 to March Admin officer Fund 2016

Haley Arnold Carbon Conversation Climate Challenge September 2015 to March Streets Fund 2016

Esmond Sage Sustainable Travel Worker Smarter Choices October 2015 to March Smarter Places 2016

Tansey Torkington Zero Waste Volunteer Zero Waste Scotland October 2015 to present Coordinator

Jane Kell Manager, St Andrews Climate Challenge July 2010 to present Environmental Network Fund & People and Communities Fund

Sarah Ashton Administration Officer, St Climate Challenge March 2014 to present Andrews Environmental Fund & People and Network Communities Fund

Anne Nicol Energy Advisor Climate Challenge July 2010 to present Fund & People and Communities Fund

Lynn Brady Energy Advisor Climate Challenge Sept 2010 to present Fund & People and Communities Fund

Sue Jenkins Energy Advisor Climate Challenge July 2010 to present Fund

Bruce Britton Energy Advisor & Climate Challenge July 2010 to present Handyman Fund & People and Communities Fund

Gavin Brady Energy Advisor & People and Nov 2015 to present Handyman Communities Fund

Report written by

Alistair Macleod Transition University of St Andrews Building a resilient community together Tel: 01334 464000 MB: 07811004514 Website: http://www.transitionsta.org & Jane Kell St Andrews Environmental Network Tel: 01334 659315 MB: 07933749003

1. Appendixes a) Guardbridge Park and Pedal responses View - It's a great scheme, and I really hope it continues. There are two parts to the scheme - one is having a safe place to leave a bike overnight, and the other is the bike /loan/hire. The loan let down the scheme for me due to the quality of the bikes. The first bike allocated to me was virtually unusable, and someone else I was speaking to had a similar experience - in fact I wondered if he had been allocated the bike I returned it was so bad! So, for me the answer is to get a decent bike that I can leave in the Bike Park.

View- I would be keen to continue the scheme and interested in purchasing my own bike, but I would prefer to have a proper bike locker (which I would be willing to pay a hire fee for) at Guardbridge so that the bike was more secure and protected from the elements. - I also noted that the park and pedal site was padlocked shut at weekends, which was not ideal if I had been wanting to come along and head out for a few hours on the bike. - For the most part I have enjoyed the scheme and have been disappointed to see that there have only really ever been two bikes at Guardbridge that have moved on a regular basis (at all?) during the duration of the scheme. - Not something that you can really do, but the cycle path is particularly badly surfaced in places with tree routes and pot-holes making the journey fairly bumpy (particularly along the side of the main road by the Fast n' Fresh and also by the trees alongside the golf course). - Thanks for putting this scheme on however, it certainly made me get out, improve my working hours, get fitter and feel much better for the exercise.

b) Edible Campus at a Glance: Current Status and Opportunities for Future Development

Background The Edible Campus project supports and runs community gardens throughout St Andrews. With 13 gardens currently covering over 400m2 of land around the town and more growing areas being generated each year, Edible Campus St Andrews is one of the largest university food growing projects in Scotland (NUS Student Eats) (figure 1). The gardens are urban agrarian community spaces open for everyone to enjoy. The abundance of food growing areas on both public and university properties ensures that one is never too far away. They are local sources of organic and seasonal produce that teach, provision for, and feed the community. Many St Andrews events and projects rely on the gardens for Figure 1. A GIS map marking the St Andrews Edible Campus growing sites and other food supply as well. For associated locations. example, the student social enterprise group Enactus used garden vegetables when making kimchi for an outreach program. Likewise, garden produce is used by the Vegetarian Society in potluck events throughout the year. During major harvest times free produce stands are run. Freshly harvested fruits and vegetables are given out in town, making the food more readily available and bringing the spirit of Edible Campus to the streets. There are regular group gardening session and events which encourage participation and expand the Edible Campus community as incentive for recruitment. These social events in the garden offer further opportunity to maximize garden use in creative and fun ways and cater to varied interests while spreading and normalizing food growing in the wider community. Furthermore, all the gardens are characteristically distinctive with unique layouts, management styles, plant types grown and growing techniques employed which provides diverse niches for gardeners to choose from. Within the Edible Campus network of gardens there is something for everyone, and with ongoing plans for expansion and enhancement continued success and progression in the gardens is anticipated.

Benefits to the Environment There are many benefits associated with the Edible Campus community gardens for the environment, the university, and the community alike. For instance, the Edible Campus growing spaces benefit biodiversity both directly and by extension. The gardens themselves transform urban areas into wildlife save-havens by providing natural food 8

and shelter for animals (figure 1). Animal species utilize different food sources to sustain them, thus the mixed variety of flora in the gardens allows a diverse range of animal populations to flourish. Hedges, compost piles, and other undisturbed areas in the gardens equally support biodiversity by providing refuge. Edible Campus St Andrews especially supports biodiversity with formal wildlife areas. For example, a pond created in the Community Garden provides a source of fresh water important for animals such as frogs and birds. Additionally, the growing spaces indirectly support biodiversity by lessening our reliance on commercial farms where the typical monoculture and high disturbance growing methods form biodiversity wastelands. Apart from biodiversity, the gardens support the environment by significantly reducing carbon emissions. Having a local source of produce supports food security while eliminating the large carbon cost associated with the growing, transport, packaging, and storage of commercially produced food. Likewise, the Edible Campus gardens use low impact and sustainable farming practices such as multicultural growing and crop rotation. This maintains soil fertility and reduces infestation without chemical fertilizers or pest control which heavily impact the environment both in their manufacturing and use.

Benefits to the Community and University Along with their environmental benefits, the gardens enrich the St Andrews community by offering unique educational opportunities in topics ranging from ecosystem services and nutrient cycling to horticulture and plant uses. The gardens comprise genuine examples of environmental principles and invite us to connect with the land. Correspondingly, knowledge and practical skills in food growing and usage are shared in the Edible Campus gardens. They offer rare chances for town residents to develop and grow gained aptitude in areas such as food cultivation and thus promote well-rounded skillsets. Furthermore, they are spaces to experiment with different growing methods and plant types and so encouraging the spread and development of information in diverse areas of plant horticulture. Thus they enrich the community by profoundly expanding our individual and collective knowledge bases. Moreover, garden activities are a means to increase the community’s mental and physical wellbeing. Their use for recreation and relaxation heightens condition of garden-participants by enticing people to spend more time outdoors and providing a fun and social source of exercise. There is an abundance of research supporting that increased time spent outside, physical activity, fun social interaction and gardening as a form of leisure all have significant positive influences over an individual’s health. As Edible Campus satisfies these areas, it is projected that the gardens should considerably bolster the St Andrews community by increasing the welfare of all who use them. Furthermore, they can inspire healthy eating and motivate people to try new foods as a free source of fresh and seasonal produce. Providing incentives for individuals to consume more home-grown fruits and vegetables could moderate their consumption of the highly modified and unhealthy foods which ordinarily fill commercial market shelves. The gardens therefore have great potential to enhance the community by supporting the health of those involved. The gardens are a means to enliven urban areas, and thus make excellent spaces for community enjoyment and social interaction. Especially in group sessions, the growing spaces inspire intermingling and actively close the gap between town and gown. Being community spaces they naturally allow locals, university staff, and students to interact.

Thus they chip at typical barriers dividing age groups and occupations; allowing people to meet as individuals and make otherwise unlikely connections through a shared interest in the gardens. The enhanced community spaces, increased cohesion, and prospects for networking benefit the university and town alike. Many of the gardens are incorporated into university managed properties and the majority of garden users are students denoting the gardens ability to largely impact university affiliates. All the benefits involved in gardening are consequently extended to the school body. The Edible Campus growing spaces could therefore cause increased satisfaction among staff and students. The services, knowledge base, and skills associated with garden participation uniquely enhance university experiences and so increase the schools desirability through offering amenities few other schools and towns provide. The multitudes of benefits the gardens administer can both spur community progression and sharpen the university’s competitive edge.

Methods The aim of the Edible Campus project is to maximize the benefits of community growing spaces and to propel the continual advancement of our gardens. A successful garden is one that is accessible, informative, inventive, and pleasurable, supports healthy ecosystems and provides the most food for the most people. The yearly crop yields, garden use, and public perception are examined as standards to gage the status and evolution of each garden. A structured monitoring regime, established through recording stations set in each garden, provides data for monitoring development. Each station is comprised of a scale and notebook and is accompanied with a sign reminding gardeners to record their activities and describing how to do so. The stations are in marked distinct spaces such as boxes by the garden entrance or in garden sheds so as to make them both easily accessible and protected from weather. Ideally recording should be easy and intuitive to encourage the most documentation possible. Garden visitors are asked to report consistent information on who used the garden, for what purpose and for how long. They are also prompted to uniformly document the weight of any produce harvested and invited to give feedback. These indicators express how frequently each garden is used and for what purpose as well as their yearly productivity. More data in this area will allow us to calculate the average harvest and carbon savings per capita. Furthermore, the notebooks have a feedback section which encourages garden-users to write any comments or concerns. This measures public perception of the gardens and clarifies possible areas of improvement. Public opinion is also monitored by regular surveys that cue individuals to share their experiences within Edible Campus and how these have affected them outside of gardening sessions. The notebooks can be collected by garden leaders and the information logged in a shared online file on a monthly

Figure2. The graphs show the total harvest10 of different produce categories from all the Edible Campus gardens for 2013 and 2014. basis. All the data can then be then be analysed to provide a continual record of garden development while suggesting ways for future enhancement. Together, the acquired information allows us to better track the growth of each garden and illuminates ways to better suit the needs of all involved.

Results Analysis of previous years data shows a steady growth in garden yields from 523.1kg recorded in 2013 and 631.6kg recorded in 2014 (figure 2). Most were comparatively productive in terms of space as well. For example, the Community garden produced 4.4kg/m2 in 2014, well above the average kitchen garden measure of 3kg/m2 (blue finger alliance). Furthermore, it is estimated that 813kg of carbon were saved in 2013 as a result of the gardens and 2,110kg in 2014 from reduced food transport and less intensive growing methods. This confirms that the Edible Campus gardens are successful in terms of annual food production and can effectively provide food for many. As a product of being an abundant local and sustainable food source, the gardens aid the environment as well through reducing the consumption of fuel resources. A recent survey showed success in the popularity of the Edible Campus project also with 100% of participants being interested in the idea of community gardens. Moreover, the results of the survey reinforced the notion that garden participation had significant positive effects on individual wellbeing. Most of those familiar with the gardens attested that the gardens aided their mental and physical fitness and that their garden experiences were satisfying (figure 3). Most respondents commented that the gardens would be most useful to them primarily as a means of food collection along with a source of relaxing and the opportunity to socialize Figure 3. The pie charts represent the responses of garden with other growers (Figure 3). Ensuring continued survey participants on how they felt the gardens affected them. achievement in these areas will ensure that current levels of satisfaction are preserved. From the survey it is apparent that Edible Campus successfully delivers many of the predicted benefits associated with food growing and current garden administration has been highly effective. In order to ensure the continued progress of the growing spaces it is necessary to consider and address areas of possible improvement. From this survey, the largest barrier to garden participation was awareness with 32% of respondents being unacquainted with Edible Campus. When asked how the gardens could be made more accessible the vast majority of participants highlighted the need to publicise and recommended more advertising of the gardens, group sessions, and harvest times. Among those without experience in the garden, many wished they had known about the project sooner and were now eager to become more involved. Survey participants who knew about the

Edible Campus claimed to have become aware principally through social media, speaking to friends, or after walking by the gardens themselves. Recognition of the project could therefore be disseminated through increasing the presence of Edible Campus media both online and in public spaces. Additionally, the development of new garden spaces and the continued networking of current gardeners will further aid in publicity. Another possible area of improvement is making the gardens more welcoming, particularly for newcomers. In the survey, some noted their timidity as inexperienced growers being a major barrier to their participation in the gardens. Furthermore, while many respondents noted the appeal of having access to home-grown organic food, many of those who had worked in the gardens rarely or never harvested. Ensuring that all feel comfortable to use and gather from the gardens is imperative for continued expansion and development. Making the gardens intuitive especially for new recruits or those wanting to garden on their own could help make the gardens more inviting. Continually updating and distributing copies of the ‘GrowVeg’ garden plans, maintaining a clear task board and slate signage in the gardens, and guides on how certain tasks can be completed are all ways of making the gardens more comprehensive as well. Reserving spaces both online and in the recording notebooks for information, updates, and comments would sustain a sense of ownership among garden users and provide a means for new gardeners to become more involved. Likewise, features such as a voluntary contact lists or a forum for sharing recipes and information could additionally solidify the community feel within the gardens. Holding more public events could similarly foster garden participation and an impression of togetherness. Making the gardens more user-friendly and inspiring idea sharing would entice individuals to partake in Edible campus, especially those who are more hesitant. Lastly, there is an apparent lack of organized monitoring for environmental health within the gardens. Completing surveys on species richness particularly monitoring locations before and after they are transformed into gardens would gage the effect Edible Campus has on local ecosystem functioning. Regular regimented monitoring of biodiversity within the gardens could give more conclusive data measures of the standing and progress of each garden’s impact as well. Operations currently in place within the gardens to support the environment should be examined and means of advancement identified. For example, increasing the use of native plants and provisioning designated habitat areas are both ways in which gardens could additionally support biodiversity. There are many ways in which the gardens could further conserve and improve ecosystem health, details and information of which can be found in the ‘Biodiversity in Community Gardens, Allotments and Orchards’ guide.

Conclusion With its many benefits to people and the environment accompanied by vast interest among garden regulars and newcomers alike, the Edible Campus project is undoubtedly a significant asset to the St Andrews community. While the gardens are proving to be successful under current monitored standards, it is clear there is still some room for improvement. Among the garden’s strengths are food production and improved wellbeing. These can be conserved through both the expansion of growing areas and augmenting our collective gardening knowledge. Moreover, keeping track of activities that are beneficial to the gardens as well as those that are unnecessary will further

streamline future planning. Finally, encouraging contribution and incorporating new ideas into current strategies will allow the gardens to continually excel. Future improvements to address gaps in the project should include spreading awareness of the gardens and ensuring that all feel welcome. This can be accomplished through increased online presence, engagement in community events, and signage throughout the town. The spread of information should include current garden activities, the details of group gardening sessions and emphasize the purpose of the gardens as a community space free for everyone to take part in. Lastly, more biodiversity monitoring and additional steps in exceptional environmental stewardship should be incorporated within the Edible Campus project. Through the informed administration of the community gardens and continued engagement of new and familiar voices, the garden’s current excellence can be expanded in future development and sustained value to the community guaranteed.

Sources

University food growing http://www.studenteats.org.uk/institutions/

Gardening and health studies http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1476-069X-9-74.pdf http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1476-069X-8-S1-S6.pdf http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/2/92.full.pdf+html http://crawl.prod.proquest.com.s3.amazonaws.com/fpcache/5ceb289244bf9e60dfc49b29 69f15388.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJF7V7KNV2KKY2NUQ&Expires=143628514 8&Signature=FCrEMBEV%2BGXSWY6HeNTZlwTx0M4%3D http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15575330809489660

Information on kitchen gardens http://www.bluefingeralliance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Sustain-Planning- Sustainable-Cities-for-Community-Food-Growing.pdf http://www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk/toolkit/positive_alternatives/food_and_farming/g row_your_own_food.pdf

c) Land Cover and Biodiversity with Suggestions for Improvement

Background The Significance of Biodiversity Biodiversity, the measure of variation between life forms, is the foundation of robust ecologies and delineates the systems that sustain our planet. At the individual level biodiversity enriches species’ populations through increased genetic variation which enhances their adaptability to changing environments. At the ecosystem level, a multiplicity of flora and faunae upholds the web of life by allowing for the complex and varied interactions that regulate the bionetwork’s functioning. Finally, at a global level, the interconnectivity of diverse effective habitats governs mechanisms of earth system processes which regulate services such as nutrient cycling and climate regulation. At its core, biodiversity and the resulting cascades of effect dictate the environment’s resilience to change and external forcing. With the current intensity of human impact and the looming consequences of climate change, environmental resilience is becoming increasingly significant and biodiversity is thus appropriating global attention. There are many benefits to be gained from fostering biodiversity in local environments. For example, ecosystem complexity upholds ecosystem services and natural capital. A healthy environment customarily provides amenities such as clean water, air and fertile soil, protecting regions from harsh weather, and diminishing the occurrence of disasters such as erosion and flooding. Supporting the biodiversity of local environments, and by extension their functioning, is valuable as it increases an ecosystems ability to provide these desired services. In some cases, however, damage to an environment is irreversible and the loss of species is irreplaceable. Thus the conservation of valuable habitats is necessary to ensure the continued provision of current services in the future.

Biodiversity in the University and Town We are fortunate to belong to such an exceptional local environment, though we consequently face responsibilities as fellows of the community, and more importantly as a large and prominent land holder, to protect it. The university owns and manages approximately 85ha of land in the town of St Andrew and an additional 373.28ha of farmland. This ensures that management choices, good and bad, on the part of the university have far-reaching consequences for ecosystem health. Supporting biodiversity both in policy and practical action will benefit both the rich natural environments of Fife and the St Andrews community. Supporting biodiversity not only maximizes ecosystem services, but supplies many other benefits to the school and the St Andrews community at large. Changes in land management to support healthier biomes would allow for more public engagement, offer unique educational opportunities, and sharpen the universities competitive edge. To begin, allowing for more and varied voices would deepen land-management discussions and invite novel ideas for continued progression. More inclusion among any relevant or interested parties would spread public awareness on sustainability issues and strengthen a sense of inclusion and ownership in biodiversity stewardship for all involved. Changing land management 15

regimes to encompass biodiversity would also supply unique opportunities for further research on environmental topics. We know so very little about the intricate connections that sustain the natural world and just as little about when, how, or what will spark an ecosystem to degrade. This makes more research and knowledge spreading imperative and the need for action all the more pressing. Choosing to support biodiversity would gain the school a reputation of environmental excellence and allow for the university’s continual advancement. In order truly ‘ever to excel’ the university needs to improve and create informed environmental policy as well as employ practical action to support biodiversity. Furthermore, steps to protect and enhance biodiversity would ensure compliance for national and local environmental policy and guarantee the University meets the rising standards. In recent years, focus on the need to support biodiversity throughout the EU, Scotland, and Fife has amplified. The Conservation Act (Scotland) 2004 obligates all public bodies, including universities, to support biodiversity. The act increases the legal protection of listed key habitats and species and calls for local governing bodies to create a Biodiversity Strategy and list Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), or areas containing priority species or habitats. Priority habitats are those that are highly biodiverse, unique or support key species and so are considered more valuable. Similarly, priority species are those that are endangered, endemic, or keystone where their influence over an ecosystem is disproportionately large compared to their population size. The 2020 Challenge for Scotland’s Biodiversity outlines the intended outcomes of Scotland’s (2004) Biodiversity strategy and is aimed at seeing the UN’s Aichi Targets through to completion. In 2010, the UN outlined objectives to spread awareness on the importance of biodiversity and integrate it into government policy, to take steps to protect the environment and reduce our collective impact, and to improve conservation projects. The 2020 challenge calls for action that maximizes the benefits of biodiversity, increases public engagement with nature, and supports healthy environments. This is further supplemented by the biodiversity strategy for Scotland, Scotland’s Biodiversity: It’s in Your Hands (2004). The strategy sets an ultimate goal of becoming a world leader in biodiversity conservation by 2030 through environmental protection and restoration, spreading both public and corporate awareness and participation, incorporating sustainability in policy, and increasing our environmental knowledge base. The Fife Local Biodiversity Action Plan 2013-18 (LBAP) converts Scotland’s initiatives into local policy and plans for action. The Fife Council LBAP suggests ways in which to support our environment and outlines local priority species and habitats. Priority habitats which can be found in St Andrews include mixed deciduous woodland, native pinewoods, calcareous and acid grassland, heathland, coastal sand dunes and saltmarsh, and maritime cliffs and slopes. Listed priority species sighted in St Andrews include bats species, native bluebells, and red squirrels.

Present Status on Biodiversity with University Policy The university currently has a Biodiversity Policy and a Landscape Strategy. These, while an admirable start, are in dire need of updating to incorporate more biodiversity conservation elements and strategies. The landscape strategy, for example, focuses primarily on the heritage, aesthetics, and utility of the campus without mention to the preservation of the environment. Furthermore, there is a need to create a comprehensive action plan which can transform the policy goals outlined in the Biodiversity Policy into practical manoeuvres.

The policy is hard to come by and is seemingly seldom considered. Encouraging input and discussion from the university and local communities, updating current documents, and providing a cohesive action plan outlining commitments to biodiversity preservation are all possible means of development.

Aims To support future biodiversity discussion, policy and action in St Andrews, a project was launched to analyse biodiversity within the town, detect possible reasons for lowered habitat value, and highlight areas for future enhancement. An objective of this project is to gain an impression of areas and habitat types which harbour more biodiversity and support noted priority species. This information can then be used to help protect and support healthier, more complex biomes and enhance those that are less resilient. An ever increasing foundation of knowledge around habitat distribution and their relative importance in St Andrews can guide land use and management decisions to better support the environment. Monitoring and mapping biodiversity and land use will mark current priority areas as well as those which could be improved. Continued monitoring of biodiversity will allow us to track changes over time and gage whether modifications in land use and management are influencing environmental health.

Methods Priority Species and Habitat In order to better understand spatial variation in biodiversity across St Andrews, data from many different biodiversity surveys between 2007 and today available from the Fife Council Records, the NBN database, and the Wildlife Society of St Andrews was compiled. The data on species sightings and biodiversity was then analysed alongside habitat distribution information plotted in 2007 by The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. A GIS model was created comparing recent recorded species sightings with land-type information (figure 1). The GIS map indicates that recognized priority biomes such as broadleaf forests of yew, shown in red, are favoured by animals over highly modified environments such as urban areas or improved grassland, shown in grey and light green respectively. Priority species in particular tended to group around key habitats, indicating a preference and reliance for more natural and complex ecosystems (figure 2). This supports the idea that biotas under less stress are more able to support the life forms that depend on them. Red Squirrels, for example, require conifer or broadleaf woodland with a diet primarily consisting of pine seeds, berries, fungi, and tree bark tissues (RSST). Bat species need feeding grounds rich in insects, a fresh water source, and roosting areas both for hibernation and mating (Bat Conservation Trust). Thus, urban and highly managed habitats are less able to meet key species needs relative to native and natural habitats.

Land Designation on University Grounds In June 2007 a land survey and analysis project for university grounds in St Andrews was conducted by Figure 3. The map is a copy of the work completed by Laura Sediment Ecology Research Group: Environmental Bates and depicts land-type distribution on university grounds Services. The vegetation survey, executed by Mr A. and shows the extent of the recorded area in the vegetation Edwards, recorded the habitat types present over the survey. majority of university property in town. This data was then compiled by Laura Bates who created GIS maps to analyse land use in university estates (Figure 3). The land area measurements were used to create a graph in order to better visualize the area reserved for different means (Figure 4). This shows that highly modified and typically less biodiverse environments such as improved grassland, land reserved for amenity use, and pathways constitute 37% and 30.42ha of the land surveyed (Table 1). Conversely, areas with less disturbance and maintenance such as woodland, aquatic habitats, and unimproved grassland cover only 7.48ha (Table 1). Land use on university property could therefore be enhanced to better support biodiversity by protection any priority habitats, such as the deciduous forest and open fresh water areas. Likewise, transforming land from highly improved or amenity uses to habitats that Figure 4. This graph illustrates the relative abundance of foster more biodiversity and adopting a lowered habitat types charted by Mr. Edwards in the 2007 vegetation management regime wherever possible could vastly survey. improve the university lands. For example, allowing for more undisturbed areas or increasing biodiverse amenity spaces such as community gardens would increase the wildlife value of the campus and reduce the universities spending on unnecessary intensive managing practices such as mowing. Furthermore, the grounds’ 2,150m of hedge and tree rows are important features which act as wildlife corridors. Planting more hedges between natural habitats would thus benefit the environment. The measured 5,500m of walls and fences could also be enhanced to better support biodiversity and wildlife. Table 1. This table is a copy of the one produced for the Allowing the survival of natural wall-dwelling plant SERG:ES 2007 report. It shows the amount of land devoted species or utilizing methods such as vertical gardening to each land-type category for the majority of university property in town. would increase species richness. Having more corridors reduces the fragmentation of valuable habitats and thus increases the land’s biodiversity standing. Additionally, 12% of the surveyed area comprised planted flower beds. In order to maximize the benefits of floral arrangements a mix of native flowers should be planted rather than non- native species, especially those containing nectar or berries. Practices such as companion planting could reduce instances of disease and infestation as well. There are many ways in 18

which the university’s campus could be improved for biodiversity at little or no cost. Taking advantage of these methods would enhance the universities grounds as well as the environment. It is important to consider that any observational study is vulnerable to influencing factors such as time spent in the field, the area of the recording location, and variation in recording procedure. This report compares biodiversity data from a wide range of sources and is therefore susceptible to discrepancies in recorder effort. The more data collected in a uniform manner, the more reliable and meaningful the results will be. Furthermore, the data was collected over many years and some areas could now be outdated. With more uniform and regimented collection of biodiversity information in St Andrews, a map can ultimately be created showing the numerical biodiversity values, on a colour scale for example, of every square kilometre across the town. The values can be derived using both alpha biodiversity indices such as the Shannon-Weiner test for species richness and the Berger-Parker index for species evenness. Beta indices such as the Jeccard test for presence or absence and the Bray-Cartis test for abundances can be used as well to monitor biodiversity change through time.

Conclusions There is an apparent need for more formal, uniform and widespread St Andrews biodiversity surveys in order to create a clear picture of where we are now in terms of ecosystem health, to provide a knowledge base for current and future biodiversity policy, and to track changes habitat health and distribution over time. For example, completing annual or bi-annual biodiversity surveys with consistent methods and time in the field for every 100m2 across St Andrews would provide valuable data that could be used for wide-ranging purposes. A regimented monitoring strategy ensures data collected is reliable while the continued procurement of figures guarantees our information is up-to-date and an accurate measure of our progress. Furthermore, assembling a formal research strategy and the continual development of biodiversity policy will create opportunities for community awareness and involvement. Added inclusivity in university land management discussions would enrich policy and propel cohesive action. There is much to do in that although a Biodiversity Policy and a Land Use Strategy are place within the university, they are in need of reform. There is no formal policy on biodiversity maintenance that the Grounds Team currently follows. Under the guidance of the Landscape Strategy, current land management focuses solely on the heritage, utility, and principally the aesthetics of a space. In practice, the Grounds Team applies some small scale and informal ecological tactics such as leaving certain patches unmown and spreading wild plant seeds in natural spaces. These procedures, however, are often met with public complaints when the areas are mistakenly thought to have been forgotten or missed. This illustrates both the need for more public engagement and for a plan that can guide practical action in preserving biodiversity. On possible means of supporting community involvement is through a conference to share ideas for improvements to land administration which invites interested community members, organizations, and the Fife Council to attend. Having inclusive policy and decision making generates unified and magnified action.

Lastly and most importantly, there is a need for action. While there is currently some biodiversity policies in place as well as a multitude of recommendations and possibilities, very little practical action has ensued. Supporting biodiversity in land management is a relatively new proposal and the first steps of change are usually the most difficult. Implementing simple strategies can help gain momentum. Initial approaches to better support our ecosystems and wildlife can incorporate lowered disturbance, minor changes in floral arrangements, increased community garden food growing spaces, and the protection of key areas. For example, adopting more restricted and less frequent mowing regimes, choosing native plants instead of invasive species for ornamental ranges, allowing for more hedgerows, and choosing not to develop areas of key importance are all improvements which have been shown to significantly impact biodiversity. More details and ideas on how best to support biodiversity are outlined in the university’s Biodiversity Policy and the EUAC’s Biodiversity on Campus.

Preliminary Options for Land Enhancement

Land Designations Suggestions for enhancement Mown Lawn Reduce mowing frequency and leave areas uncut wherever possible, such as the base of trees .

Flower Beds Choose native flower species, particularly those bearing nectar. Using companion planting could reduce instances of infestation and disease.

Hedgerows Choose native species, especially those bearing fruit.

Fences and walls Less medling and removing of plants as well as adding native wall plants (for example species of lichen and mossess) or crawling plants (for example ivy).

Parkinglots and tarmack Adding planted boxes of native plant species where possible.

Tree parklands and tall Setting out bird and bat boxes to support local populations. structures

Figure 1. This map charts the recorded sightings of red squirrel, bat, and water vole priority species in and around St Andrews over the CEH’s habitat distribution data (2007). Wildlife tends to group around the mixed broadleaf forest (red), a priority habitat, and other areas with minimal disturbance. There were fewer sightings recorded in highly modified environments such a urban areas (grey) and improved grassland (light green).

Figure 1. This map charts recorded mammal sightings in and around St Andrews over the CEH’s habitat distribution data (2007). While 22 sightings of red squirrels tend to group around more natural and key habitats of mixed broadleaf forest and coniferous woods, the invasive grey squirrel populations were sighted well into urban areas. This could suggest that native red squirrels are slightly more restricted in their habitat range than grey squirrels. Continually, there is no indication of zonation patterns between the two squirrel species supporting that grey squirrels are able to compete with red squirrels for resources in the preferred low-disturbance habitats as well.

Sources

I would like to acknowledge Faye Moyes, Jed Long, Laura Bates, Alec Christie, Samuel Miller, and Maria Dornelas for supplying me with data and their continued support throughout the project. Millennium Assessment UK 2015 http://www.millenniumassessment.org/documents/document.356.aspx.pdf UK Biodiversity Action Plan http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/PDF/UKBAP_Species-HabitatsReview-2007.pdf Biodiversity Scotland http://www.biodiversityscotland.gov.uk/advice-and-resources/habitat-definitions/priority/ NBN Records https://data.nbn.org.uk/Reports/Sites/NO51/Groups Fife Biodiversity Action Plan https://www.st- andrews.ac.uk/media/estates/documents/Fife%20Local%20Biodiversity%20Action%20Plan.pdf Conservation Act (Scotland) 2004 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2004/6/notes/contents Environment Team St Andrews Biodiversity Reports https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/media/estates/Albany%20Park%20WEST.pdf https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/media/estates/Gateway_report_249.pdf https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/media/estates/AMHLake_report_308.pdf https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/media/estates/StMarysQuad.pdf Simpson’s Index http://www.countrysideinfo.co.uk/simpsons.htm 2020 Challenge for Scotland’s Biodiversity http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0042/00425276.pdf Scotland’s Biodiversity: It’s In Your Hands http://www.gov.scot/Resource/Doc/25954/0014583.pdf Scotland’s Wildlife: An Assessment of Biodiversity in 2010 http://www.snh.gov.uk/docs/B811968.pdf Aichi Biodiversity Targets https://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/ EU Biodiversity Policy http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/biodiversity/comm2006/2020.htm Bat Conservation Trust (information) http://www.bats.org.uk/pages/where_do_bats_live.html Red Squirrel Survival Trust (information) http://rsst.org.uk/about-us/red-squirrel-facts/