Our Scottish Borders Campus

Scottish Borders Campus and Sustainability

Located in a countryside location the small town of Galashiels, our Scottish Borders campus is situated at the heart of Scotland's luxury textile industry. Galashiels is located on the River Tweed, which during the 19th Century provided hydropower capable of powering several textile mills along the banks of the river. One of these mills now forms our School of Textiles, a centre of excellence in design and textiles, enabling the development of a more sustainable fashion industry and modern textiles.

An allotment area has been built immediately behind the main accommodation area (Jean Muir Student Village) to enable staff and students to grow herbs and vegetables, providing access to gardening tools and allotment plots. If you are interested in applying for a plot please contact Lou Dean at Louise.Dean@hw.ac.uk

Currently in development beside the allotment is an outdoor social area, which will feature a mural to be co-designed by students and a local artist, inspired by sustainability themes relevant to fashion and textiles.

Creative history, innovative future

As the historic home of Scotland's wool and textiles industry, our Scottish Borders campus is at the forefront of technical innovation designed to inform and shape an industry with a high environmental impact. Sustainable materials for the fashion industry and design for net zero are some of the key teaching and research topics on our borders campus. Explore our key projects and advances here.

Building in Sustainability

Co-located with Borders College, our Scottish Borders campus benefits from a state of the art sewage heat recovery system, the first of its kind in the UK. This provides a low carbon heat source using residual heat in the town's sewerage system, which runs adjacent to the site. Low ambient heat from the sewer is converted into usable heat in our buildings via a heat pump system, enabling a higher efficiency than air source heat pumps could provide, particularly in an area with regular spells of cold, damp weather.

Campus Services

Our Campus Services are responsible for the development and implementation of our environmental, energy and sustainability policies.

We have various initiatives in place to reduce our energy consumption and to promote recycling, and each year we submit a climate change report to the Sustainable Scotland Network (SSN).

Our Climate Action Framework, outlines potential projects and process changes that we can consider in order to reduce our carbon footprint to net zero.

We hope that while you are studying with us, you can play your part in helping us to minimise waste, reduce our energy use and recycle as much as possible.

Recycling

Find out how to recycle on campus.

Scottish Borders Campus Sustainability updates

Grow, Cook and Inspire Event, Borders Campus

Helen Cross, the author of ‘Grow, Cook and Inspire', hosted a gardening basics session for students at our Borders campus in March 2023.