Sustainability by design

Earlier on, we were talking with Jonathan and David. And in particular, David told us a lot about the new building that we’re going to have for the School of Chemistry in Jubilee campus. Now I’m joined here by another one of my colleagues, Chris Moody. Given your involvement in this, can you tell us a little bit how the idea was developed of creating this new building? For many years, we’ve had a range of collaborative research projects with GSK. And GSK its precursor companies have historically employed a lot of Nottingham graduates. So there’s been this close relationship for many years. Both organisations have an interest in sustainability.

GSK’s chief executive Andrew Witty has challenged his company to massively reduce their carbon footprint over the next decade or two. So following a meeting with Andrew Witty a couple of years ago, this idea was floated whereby not only one would carry out sustainable type chemistry in the laboratories, but one would also think about the laboratory design itself. And therefore GSK came to us with an idea that not only could we design a new type of chemistry laboratory, but one might actually then go ahead and build it. And what impact do you think this new centre is going to have? Not just for the School of Chemistry, but for the wider community.

Well hopefully, we will change the ethos of not only in the way the chemistry is taught in universities, but the way that chemistry research is carried on. Now that, again, will not only apply to universities, of course. That will apply to the wider industry. Obviously, GSK’s particular interest is in the pharmaceutical industry and the manufacture of new medicines. So clearly, that is going to be a major research interest. We hope the students who are involved in the new building will just start to think about things in a slightly different way. They will consider sustainability as the first and foremost consideration before they start any of their research.

We also hope that the centre will serve as a hub for small companies in the local area so they can come in and see new ways of working, which are going to be saving water, saving energy, et cetera. Well, thank you very much, Chris. That’s all for now. See you later.