Energy and carbon
As a multi-site organisation we recognise our responsibilities in tackling climate change and are working hard to reduce our carbon footprint across the estate. Our Carbon Management Plan 2018-2022 sets a goal of ensuring scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions remain within 46% by 2021/22 against a 2005/06 baseline, despite our new building developments. We also aim to increase the amount of energy generated on site and report on activity based measures as well as total emissions.
Our achievements
- Our scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions* reduced by 46% from 2005-06 to 2017-18
- We now emit over 2,000 fewer tonnes of carbon each year than we did ten years ago – the equivalent of 250 typical UK homes worth of emissions
- We have exceeded our targets for reducing scope 3 carbon emissions from waste production and disposal, water use and treatment, and business travel.
- Over the last ten years we have reduced electricity use by 19% and gas by 37%
- Our new zero emissions Business School building uses 4 air source heat pumps for all its heating, eliminating the use of fossil fuels on site
- We have tripled the size of our electric vehicle fleet since 2017
- New BREEAM excellent certified zero carbon business school completed in 2018
Key documents
We assess the proportion of our total carbon emissions (scope 1 and 2) arising from the provision of in-house and externally provided residential accommodation for staff and students. In 2017/18 this was 34.7%.
As well as reducing our scope 1 and 2 emissions targets, we are working to drive down scope 3 emissions from our supply chain through consistent implementation of the sustainability requirements in our Procurement Strategy.
*Scope 1 – direct emissions e.g. from gas and oil combustion for heat and hot water
*Scope 2 – indirect emissions e.g. from the purchase of grid electricity
*Scope 3 – indirect emissions from transport, waste, water consumption and procurement
We’ve achieved this by:
- Reaching over 200,000 kwh of solar PV panels – plans to raise our renewables capacity and add to existing arrays at Oxstalls and Park that provide 45,000 kWh of electricity each year
- LED lighting – we roll out LED lighting to halls and operational buildings and installed efficient lighting control through our annual maintenance programme
- Switching to cleaner fuels – by switching from using oil for heating to high efficiency gas boilers at our halls we have reduced carbon emissions from oil burning by around 200 tonnes
- Building energy management – improved sub metering has helped guide our refurbishment and efficiency initiatives, ensuring temperature and humidity levels are well controlled
- Increasing our efficiency – we now evaluate energy use against building and room usage patterns to optimise our space management efficiency
