With a year to go for the delivery of our initial 35% carbon reduction target, we’re pleased to report that by July 2015, the University had achieved a 26% reduction against its 2008/09, saving £9.9 million for the University, together with a further £2.2 million for and by our partner organisations.
In carbon terms, this has saved the equivalent of 9,767 household’s annual carbon emissions and as the 2015/16 term commences, we are confident of our potential to deliver that 35% cut in emissions by July 2016.
In 2014/15, we completed another £850,000 of energy efficiency investments, including vastly improved energy metering for all our main campus buildings.
The first phase of our district heating project was also completed, with the second phase shortly due to come online, which will provide heat to 16 campus buildings as well as generating electricity through a combined heat & power (CHP) engine. We’re also investing £1 million in fume cupboard efficiency upgrades and our Carbon Countdown behaviour change campaign promises to be our biggest yet.
We’ll be monitoring and reporting our progress closely throughout the year. Our visual tracker in the Sustainability office keeps our minds focused on this goal:
Our full Carbon Management progress report provides further detail on the work completed over the last year.
