Environmental Incidents and Emergency Response

Reporting an Environmental Incident

In an emergency call 999 or Security on 0118 378 6300 for immediate response.
During normal working hours contact the Estates Helpdesk on 0118 978 7000 for immediate assistance.
Once the incident has been responded to, please report it to Sustainability Services by completing this form:

ENVIRONMENTAL INCIDENT REPORT

What is an environmental incident?

An Environmental Incident is an event that may cause harm or potential harm to an environmental receptor e.g. air, water, land, wildlife or local habitat. This could include: air pollution, black smoke, chemical spill, oil spill, fly tipping and sewage leak.

In many cases, major pollution incidents can be prevented if appropriate pollution prevention measures are in place or immediately available. It is the duty of all members of the University to ensure that where possible, they do not knowingly contribute to such an incident.

Environmental Incident Response Procedure

  1. In the event of an environmental incident between the hours of 08:00 and 16:30 Monday to Friday, the incident must be reported immediately to the Estates Helpdesk on 0118 378 7000 who will contact the appropriate person or company to deal with the incident.
  2. In the event of an environmental incident between the hours of 16:30 and 08:00 Monday to Friday, all day Saturday and Sunday, or on University closure days and bank holidays, the incident must be reported to Security on 0118 378 6300 who will contact assist and call the On-Call Duty Engineer from Estates who will deal with assess the situation.
  3. If the incident cannot be managed internally, the Duty Engineer or appropriate person should consult the ‘Emergency Contractor Details Contact List’ which is managed by Maintenance.
  4. A spill response process is operated by Estates who can deploy a spill kit to prevent spills spreading or proceeding off site, unless the spill is beyond their capacity in which case external support is brought in (See the Emergency Contractor Details Contact List).
  5. The appropriate person/company then deals with the incident and prevents or mitigates adverse environmental damage.
  6. After an incident, the person responsible for dealing with the incident should fill out an Environmental Incident Report.
  7. Completed forms must be sent to the Sustainability Officers who review, monitor and, if necessary, investigate and identify appropriate action to prevent re-occurrence.
  8. Any corrective actions that are identified are managed via the non-conformity and corrective action procedure which is detailed in the EEMS Section 7.1.

Schools and Functions should have their own local incident response procedures that are relevant to the activities, risks, locations and facilities within their operational activities.  Please contact sustainability@reading.ac.uk for assistance.

This procedure is part of the EEMS Manual and Procedures which are reviewed annually.  Next Review is due in January 2026.

 Skip to content