Brighton Breakfast Presentations

At a busy breakfast in Brighton, local businesses met to hear from a local business case study and gain an insight into the waste industry as well as meet like-minded organisations over coffee and croissants.

Gus Christie, Chief Executive of Glyndebourne spoke about the efforts the opera house has made towards becoming carbon neutral. Starting in 2011 with their 70 foot wind turbine which now generates 97% of the sites electricity and saves roughly 700 tonnes of CO₂ annually.

Gus has also upgraded 11 old boilers and more recently installed a 200 kWt wood chip boiler which will be fed from their own wood supply. 1,300 of the 1,560 light bulbs have been upgraded to LEDs reducing energy bills by 90%. Glyndebourne also installed electric vehicle charging points and offers a free coach service from Lewes railway station for audiences with 14,000 people using the service in 2014.

Darren Hedges from Brighton Paper Round gave an into the recycling industry and explained what happens to waste after it has been taken away for recycling. He explained the different plans and facilities used to process the waste and also where the baled materials are sent onto to be reprocessed both in the UK and abroad.

Darren also shared how 15 million tonnes of food waste a year is produced by the UK and 12.5 million tonnes of this ends up in landfill producing methane. He spoke about the ways of reusing food waste including composting and aerobic digestion.

Download their presentations.

The Sustainable Business Network is delivering the events programme of the Green Growth Platform, a 5 year programme led by the University of Brighton offering a range of free and subsidised services to both businesses in the environmental sector and those looking to improve their environmental performance.