Saving £107,720 Annually through Saving Energy: Glasgow Life and Salix Finance

Heat, Light and Air: How Glasgow Life Saved £107,720 a Year

Glasgow Life, a charity providing sporting and cultural activities on behalf of Glasgow City Council, has taken steps with Salix to drive a reduction in carbon emissions across their facilities in their efforts to meet Scotland’s carbon reduction targets. 

In 2016, Glasgow Life became the first leisure organisation in Scotland to set up a Salix Recycling Fund. With interest-free match funding from Salix Finance, they have created a £420,000 ring-fenced fund dedicated to energy saving projects.

Isabel Brown, the Head of Infrastructure Support at Glasgow Life, said “The excellent assistance and support from Salix has enabled us to maximise our funding to carry out a wide range of projects which otherwise we would have been unable to undertake. These projects assist in raising the profile of energy savings across the organisation and encourage our staff to identify further initiatives. Real benefits are achieved in terms of financial and carbon reductions and also in improvements to our customers experience when using our properties”.  

Glasgow Life operates many buildings including theatres, libraries and leisure centres and the organisation has carried out a number of different projects since opening their Recycling Fund. These projects have been used to support works including energy saving air barriers, and upgrades to LED lighting. For example, in Scotstoun Swimming Pool, a 20 year old air handling unit was replaced with a new Menerga model, saving £55,448 a year and a new LED floodlighting at Glasgow Green Football Centre reduced energy consumption by 37%, resulting in an annual saving of £10,736. These financial saving are returned into the recycling fund to be used again for future projects. This investment has improved Glasgow Life’s infrastructure, as well as reducing their carbon emissions by 485 tonnes CO2e annually*. Read more about Glasgow Life’s experience here.

Leisure facilities often have large energy consumption, which creates an excellent opportunity to save money and cut carbon emissions through energy efficiency.  Salix Finance offers interest-free finance for public sector bodies to improve their energy efficiency. Salix Recycling Funds match funding from a public sector body with funding from Salix, to create a permanent source of finance for energy efficiency. Salix is able to support any Scottish public sector body subject to Public Bodies Duties under the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, which includes many Arm’s Length External Organisations (ALEO) such as Glasgow Life.

Public sector bodies and ALEOs that are interested in Salix funding are encouraged to complete an expression of interest form. Please contact us at [email protected], or by telephone at 020 3102 6904 for further information.

* Calculated using emissions factors published by government in 2017 for carbon footprinting purposes.