According to the Government Spending Review, Cambridge Colleges will now be financially responsible for their carbon usage.

This comes just weeks after the government has reduced Cambridge Colleges’ research funding.

Money made by the government from selling credits for carbon usage will no longer be recycled back to its participants but will instead be exploited as a new source of income for government spending.

The Carbon Reduction Commitment’s (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme previously required organisations – including Cambridge Colleges – to buy an allowance for every tonne of CO₂ that they planned to emit in the coming year. Organisations were then placed in a league table based on carbon reduction performance, with those near the top standing to gain money while those at the bottom footed the bill.

“Essentially, what was a pretty complex stick-and-carrot scheme has been transformed into a simple stick,” Downing Bursar, Dick Taplin, explained to Varsity.

Cambridge Colleges’ environmental concerns would undoubtedly rank them in the upper sections of the league table, allowing them to break even or make a profit from their efforts.

It is now estimated that the scheme will cost the 31 Colleges around £750,000 in the first year – an added burden after the effects of the economic downturn and drops in donation interest.

What is essentially a tax of £12 per tonne of CO₂, is set to rise each year, draining Colleges’ already limited resources to implement environmentally-friendly technological improvements.

“This is money we could have spent on reducing our carbon emissions,” Jennifer Brook, Churchill Bursar told Varsity. “The CRC scheme is simply a distraction – and an expensive one at that.”

The changes have intensified hostilities to the scheme that were already brewing.

Organisations are forced to register for the scheme only if they produce over 6000mW hours of electricity per year. No Cambridge College would have qualified individually therefore, but instead they were judged as a group.

Cambridge Colleges – with the anticipated support of Oxford – are now drafting a collective complaint to CRC authorities t to expose the scheme’s inhibiting effects on carbon reduction.

“It is a shame that the government do not seem to be showing more support towards educational institutions that actually try to help the environment,” lamented one Caius engineer.

Nevertheless, the steeper costs mean that Colleges are reluctant to give up on their energy-saving efforts, despite the fact that they have been left more financially restricted to impose big changes.

“An exciting suggestion is to have energy-use league tables between staircases in Colleges,” described Sachi Findlater, Cambridge Colleges' CRC Coordinator. “The small efforts of students can make a significant collective difference.”

College welfare officers seem to agree that they now have to “interpret their job in a very ‘local’ way.”

Meanwhile, Taplin maintains, “We should all face this challenge – with its new tax – in a positive and innovative manner.” Downing, therefore, is considering lights powered only by using a hotel-style utility card, something that Clare College already have implemented in their second and third year accommodation on Chesterton Lane.