Earlier this year, works around Christ Church’s Claremont, Mount Claremont and Dwellingup campuses were completed as part of the Australian Government’s Community Water Grants, which were received in 2008 to help save, recycle and improve the health of the local water resources.

Across the Claremont and Mount Claremont campuses, Christ Church matched the government’s contribution dollar for dollar to install flow control valves on all taps, replace inefficient toilets with dual flush toilets and replace existing urinals with no flush urinals. This project will save 930,000 litres of water per year.

At Kooringal in Dwellingup, the School has saved 30,000 litres of water per year by retrofitting water efficient taps, dual flush toilets and waterless urinals.

Electrical and solar grants, received as part of the National Solar Schools Grants in 2008, will be used in the building of the School’s North West Corner redevelopment. Demolition of the old V Block is underway and building is expected to start in August.

Christ Church Property Manager Chris Coslani said the new development would optimise this previously under-utilised portion of the School campus, and the Physical Education, Property, Services, Maintenance and Cadets Departments would all get new facilities as part of the project.

“The new development will harvest rainwater from the extensive new roof and the roof of the existing Gymnasium,” explained Chris. “It also includes state of the art solar hot water heating which will supply all the existing gym and new building hot water requirements.

“The new building has been designed to enable photovoltaic panels to be installed at any time in the future for on-site power generation. The building will also feature a new rubbish recycling process, which will significantly reduce energy used during the recycling process.”

Mr Coslani said that overall the new building would be a low energy consumer, with the capacity to be utilised by the School in many operational modes for many years into the future. It should be completed by August 2010.

These environmental initiatives follow the implementation of significant energy savers in the new Visual Art, Design and Technology Building, which was completed last year. The School has drawn on its swimming pool’s geothermal heating system for cooling and heating of the building. While air conditioning was installed in the new building, this is only used on minimal occasions when the building reached maximum temperatures in the peak of summer.