CECAP Annual Progress Report 22-23

Climate and Ecological Crisis Action Plan

Glossary and definitions

Abbreviation Definition

AMR Automated Meter Readings

BGB Bournemouth Gateway Building (BU building on Lansdowne Campus)

BMS Building Management System

Biomass boiler A heating system that generates heat from biomass e.g. woodchip

BREEAM Building Research Establishment

Environmental Assessment Method; a standard for sustainable construction

BU Bournemouth University

Carbon Factors Factors that convert activity data into estimated greenhouse gas emissions data. The DEFRA carbon factors to be used for each reporting year are within the latest version published before the reporting year. The carbon factors used for the 2022/23 are the DEFRA GHG conversion factors published 22 June 2022.

CECAP Bournemouth University’s Climate & Ecological Crisis Action Plan, to reach net zero emissions and embed environmental action across the university by 2030/31

(t) CO2e (kg) CO2e

(tonnes of or kilograms of) Carbon Dioxide (CO2) equivalent; the concentration of CO2 that would cause the same level of warming as a given type and concentration of greenhouse gas

DEFRA UK Government Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

DH Dorset House (BU building on Talbot Campus)

EAUC Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges

EEMS Environmental and Energy Management System, BU is certified to both ISO14001 and ISO50001

ESD Education for Sustainable Development

GIA Gross Internal Area; the total footprint area of all BU’s buildings minus the widths of the walls

GHG Greenhouse gases

GSHP Ground Source Heat Pump

kWh and MWh Kilowatt Hour and Megawatt hour

Abbreviation Definition

LED Light-emitting diode; a low energy lightbulb

LCP Local Climate Partnership (for Dorset and BCP area)

Locationbased reporting

Marketbased reporting

The location-based method calculates the emissions from electricity use based on the average emission intensity of the power grid we are using. Meaning we use the UK grid emission factor published by DEFRA.

Calculates the emissions from the electricity a company purchases. The market-based method is intended to support the use and reporting of green energy tariffs via Renewable Energy Certificates (REC) and Guarantees of Origin (REGO).

NbS Nature-based solutions; solutions to climate and ecological challenges that provide benefits to both nature and humans

Net zero emissions Reducing gross emissions and then offsetting any residual emissions until the amount released is equal to the amount removed from the atmosphere

PGB Poole Gateway Building (BU building on Talbot Campus)

PH Poole House (BU building on Talbot Campus)

PPA Power Purchase Agreement

Solar PV Solar photovoltaic panels

SBT Science-based targets

SCEF Standardised Carbon Emissions Framework by the EAUC released in January 2023

Scope 1 emissions Emissions from activities under an organisations direct control such as those from gas boilers, fleet vehicles and on-site refrigerant leakage

Scope 2 emissions Emissions from energy purchased for an organisation’s operations

Scope 3 emissions Emissions from activities not directly controlled by an organisation such as those from the products we buy, commuting and waste disposal

SOV Single-occupancy vehicles, used typically to describe driving in a car alone

SUBU Students’ Union of Bournemouth University

TC Talbot Campus

UN SDGs United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Introduction

Bournemouth University’s (BU) Climate and Ecological Crisis Action Plan (CECAP) is our response to mitigate our contribution to the negative environmental, social, and economic impacts that encompass the climate and ecological crisis and adapt to its impacts. This report is our annual progress update for the 2022/23 academic year. It is structured against our eight objectives and identifies both areas of progress and of improvement.

We report our actual greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) for 2022/23 against our targets for all scopes. This reporting year, university operations have been returning to normal following the COVID-19 pandemic which is reflected in lower energy emissions but higher travel, water and waste emissions as activity on campus increases. We continued to add renewables to our estate and work with teams across the university to lower emissions, improve biodiversity and address all areas of the climate and ecological crisis.

Our vision

This report aims to inform our students, staff and community about the effort we are making and results of our efforts to reduce our emissions. It shows how everyone across BU needs to play a part in reducing their own carbon emissions so that together we can avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Our net zero emissions vision is a BU community that recognises the need to live in harmony with the natural world to protect the survival and wellbeing of all communities and takes action to enrich society for the benefit of people and planet.

The vision and our CECAP aim to support the achievement of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). You can read more about how BU are working to address all of the 17 goals in our SDG report which is shared on the BU website.

Our staff continue to work hard to protect and preserve a sustainable environment and this flows through our education, research and professional practice. Our estates energy projects and operational control of energy has been recognised this year externally. We are committed to continue our approach to achieving net zero GHG emissions by 2030/31 with everyone in the BU community playing their part.”

Professor John Vinney Vice-Chancellor Bournemouth University

Summary of progress against net zero emissions target

Our aim:

50%

How we’re doing:

29% across all three scopes and net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030/31

across GHG sources currently being measured against the 2018/19 base year.

We have completed four years since our baseline of 2018/19 and we have seen substantial efforts to reduce emissions over this time, particularly in electricity from renewable sources on campus, infrastructure to support active travel and electric vehicles and in embedding the UN SDGs in our teaching. But there is much more to do if we are to reach our ambitious goal of net zero by 2030/31. This year we have gained much insight into the true cost of heat decarbonisation, and this is going to be much more expensive than we expected. We have also seen a return to business travel post covid which will require more effort from everybody in the BU community to travel only when essential. We have retained our commitment to achieving our goals and will stay focused.

We continue to use our CECAP action plan as it maps out our route to become a net zero emissions university with environmental sustainability embedded across its operations, teaching and research. To implement the Plan, 94 actions have been identified across 15 themes. Our progress is tracked through our CECAP Group and reported to the Sustainability Committee. A summary view of our progress is below, and more detail is provided in Appendix 2:

In 2018/19, BU’s GHG emissions scopes 1 and 2 and measurable parts of scope 3 were recorded as 6,723 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) for the year.

In 2022/23 this reduced to 4,789 tCO2e. Emissions

2022/23 versus SBTi target emissions (tCO2e) using location-based reporting

Similar to the past two years, our target for scope 1 emissions was missed, but targets for scope 2, scope 3 and overall emissions reduction were met.

The largest reduction this year comes from scope 2 (purchased electricity), where we have exceeded our 21% reduction target, and achieved a reduction of 38% compared to our 2018/19 baseline. This is due to a number of reasons:

• Increase in renewable electricity production on campus due to the addition of the Poole House Tower solar PV array.

• Reduction in electricity consumption across most buildings due to energy efficiency projects (e.g. lighting upgrades), changes to equipment run-time hours and the continued optimisation of controls.

• Reduction in the DEFRA carbon factors for electricity due to the decarbonisation of the grid.

• We report our emissions using location-based reporting, therefore even though we do purchase 100% green electricity from a REGO backed tariff we do not report electricity emissions as zero. If we were to report using market-based reporting our electricity emissions would not be counted. You can see a comparison of this at the end of Appendix 1.

Sources of emissions

Despite a reduction in our scope 1 emissions compared to last year, the 22% reduction target has been missed. We achieved a 15% reduction in emissions compared to the baseline year. Emissions from natural gas are back down to baseline year levels and are trending downwards, after seeing an increase over the past two years because of increased COVID-19 ventilation requirements. Fleet vehicle emissions are continuing to decline but the reduction comes mainly from fugitive emissions.

We met the reduction target for our scope 3 emissions this year, achieving a reduction of 27% against a target of 10% compared to baseline emissions. A number of areas have increased their emissions since the last reporting year, including water/wastewater, operational waste and business travel emissions as university operations return to pre-COVID 19 levels, but these are still below the levels of our baseline emissions, and we continue to work to reduce them. The increase in business travel flights was the main contributor to the increase in scope 3 emissions since last year, increasing from 308 tCO2e in 2021/22, to 908 tCO2e in 2022/23.

The chart below shows the changes in the sources of GHG emissions in the base year compared to 2022/23. For further details, see the Emissions report in appendix 1. This year we have reported residential emissions separately and these are labelled below as ‘Student Village’.

Reaching net zero

In order to reach a net zero position we hope to reduce our emissions by 50% across all three scopes. This reduction is firmly our priority for the seven years until the end of 2030/31, where we hope to reach net zero. In 2030/31 we will use offsetting to purchase certified carbon credits to enable us to be a net zero university. This will account for the remaining emission. This is in line with our Science Based Targets. Our focus now is firmly on reducing our emissions and delivering the measures identified in our CECAP Full Plan. These are summarised in the table and our progress explained. Our focus remains on being efficient with resources. Each project we undertake has to be carefully considered and the business case approved internally. We consider the return on investment and balance carbon and cost in each case.

Summary of the measures we are focused on to reach net zero GHG emissions

Number Measure Progress

1 Energy Conservation Measures (ECMs)

2 Heat Switch moving away from natural gas fired heat provision

3 Cloud Data Centre

4 PV installation

5 Flights

6 EV fleet

7 LEV buses or EV buses

We continue to conserve energy with over 600 LED replacements on TC this year.

We have added a new solar thermal to reduce gas for hot water in Christchurch House and next year we will be removing gas boilers in Dorset House to replace with air source heat pumps and adding a solar thermal system at Chapel Gate.

IT have confirmed that the data centre can’t currently be moved to cloud. Therefore focus is now on reducing energy consumption of data centres. This year new servers in JH data centres is reducing energy consumption

We now have over 600MW of PV capacity on site, having added a new system this year to Poole House tower and will be adding another to Dorset House later in 2023 (c.100MW). We are aiming for 1MW installed capacity by 2025 so will be looking for a further 200MW.

We are seeing a return to flights post covid, and this year we have published sustainable travel guidance for staff to support them to reduce business travel emissions. We encourage use of rail over domestic flights where possible.

Most of our BU fleet is electric and we are working to replace the remaining few vehicles with EVs. This year we have improved the EV charging infrastructure on campus.

Last year we refreshed our buses with the most efficient diesel’s available, and we plan to explore EV buses when our contract is up for renewal in 2026.

Top 5 achievements

1 Heat Decarbonisation Planning

We have accessed government funding to help us develop our plans for switching our heating away from fossil gas to lower carbon alternatives. This has enabled us to make big steps towards moving Dorset House away from gas to air source heat pumps. This work will complete in 2024 and will save around 70 tonnes of carbon equivalent.

2 We won ‘Energy Management Team of the Year’ 2023 Public Sector

Our overall energy monitoring and energy projects process has enabled us to win this prestigious award from the Energy Management Association (EMA). We also contributed an article to the EMA special magazine for International Women’s Day which featured women in the energy sector. You can read the article here from page 18.

3 Installation of low and zero carbon technologies

This year, we added a new solar PV array and solar thermal system to Poole House. The PV array should produce around 100,000 kWh of electricity each year, and the solar thermal system will heat the showers of the new active travel facilities.

4

New active travel facilities and new EV charging points

To lower commuter emissions and encourage active travel to the university, we’ve installed 24 new electric vehicle chargers and provided new changing and showering facilities in Poole House to support active travel. This includes new male, female and gender-neutral showers, changing rooms, lockers, wash basins and drying cabinets.

5 Supporting BUs Eco Entrepreneurs

We’ve continued to expand our awareness-raising and engagements with students and staff through various media and activities. We continued our Eco Entrepreneurs Fund, supported by Santander and BU, to fund £6,500 for student and recent graduates who are launching or growing business ideas which address the climate and ecological crisis. We also held the second Climate Justice Challenge and rolled out Carbon Literacy and Climate Fresk training.

To summarise our progress in numbers this table shows where we are against our KPIs for 2022/23.

Performance this year

29%

31.24 kg CO2e per m2

Reduction in GHG emissions across all scopes. Progress towards net zero.

Emissions per GIA from scope 1 and 2

62% Electric Vehicle fleet

6%

On campus renewable electricity

13% On campus heat from renewable and low carbon sources

100% Purchased renewable grid electricity using REGO backed tariff

58% of total energy from renewable, low carbon and REGO backed purchased renewable energy

81% of courses align to the UN SDGs

35% of units at each level of all programmes to have content which addresses the climate and ecological crisis

Top 2% Ranking against institutions in the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings 2022

14.1 kg /FTE Total non-residential and non-construction waste per head (kg per full time equivalent)

83% of construction waste recycled

2% of water from rainwater harvesting

Target and date

17% by 2022-23, 50% by 2030/31

54 kgCO2e per m2 by 2025

100% by 2025

10% by 2025

100%

100% by 2025

100% by 2025 academic year

Top 15%

20 kg waste per Full Time Equivalent (FTE)

95%

Note: As of 22/23 we now focus on waste produced per person and are working hard to reduce this, rather than reporting a percentage waste recycled.

Objective 1: Demonstrating sustainable leadership

We aim to demonstrate sustainable leadership both internally and within the community. This means embedding the responsibility for climate action within all relevant policies and committees and ensuring that our procedures and reward processes recognise this priority.

We also hope to be a regional leader, supporting our local community and sector to act collaboratively, innovatively, and effectively to address the climate and ecological crisis.

It is our objective that staff across the University will align our governance structures with addressing the crisis and then commit to their implementation, even when facing challenges.

ISO14001 and ISO50001

Our Environmental and Energy Management System is the foundation of our university-wide work to embed environmental action and continue to be improved every year. We are certified to EcoCampus Platinum level and, as of 2020, we are one of only a handful of universities to be externally certified to both ISO14001 and ISO50001 for environmental and energy management, respectively. The focus of ISO50001 particularly has in recent years helped us to secure the data we need to understand and target energy improvements and support business cases for investment. We continue to be externally audited annually and this year now have combined audits for both environment and energy.

How the Sustainability Committee works

Our Sustainability Committee is responsible for our Environment and Energy Management System and reports directly into the University Leadership Team. Committee members represent academic faculties, our students and Students Union, our staff unions as well as essential functions of IT, Procurement, Marketing & Communications and Estates. The Committee is chaired by Stuart Laird, Director of Estates, and co-chaired by Professor Fiona Cownie, Associate Professor, Faculty of Media and Communication. As a team the Committee works to challenge each other and provide a formal place to share sustainability leadership across BU. They review and approve all our environmental policies and proposals are regularly brought for support.

Working Groups

Reporting to the Sustainability Committee we have working groups including the CECAP group, Biodiversity group and Sustainable IT group. Students and staff can join these working groups by getting in touch with sustainability@ bournemouth.ac.uk This year we have made progress in the CECAP group to support development of our heat decarbonisation approach. Our Sustainable IT group has also been working to track against our target of a 15% reduction in power consumption in our data centres and as of November 2023 we are seeing a 14% reduction due to replacing server equipment (for more information see Objective 5).

Local Climate Partnerships

We continue to work with organisations in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole areas to support each other to make progress towards net zero. This includes working with Bournemouth and Poole College to develop their sustainability approach, being a member of the Dorset Public Sector Decarbonisation Group and continuing to develop our partnership with the University Hospitals Dorset to improve sustainability in the healthcare sector.

Dorset Public Sector Decarbonisation and Ecology Group

We are pleased to be working with local public sector organisations to collaborate and share ideas to support our work to achieve net zero. BU have shared our experiences with implementing our electric vehicle charging network and developing our heat decarbonisation plan with organisations including from the police, ambulance, local council and NHS organisations. We look forward to developing this partnership over the coming years.

Working with University Hospitals Dorset (UHD) for Climate Action

We have been close partners with UHD for several years and are increasingly working together to integrate sustainability across our organisations. We have continued to build links between the BU CECAP and UHD’s Green Plan. This year we have worked on:

• Modelling projects exploring two areas this year: the impacts of travel mode choice and the impacts of the choice of food. These have been developed by Professor Rick Stafford working with UHD Sustainability Manager Stuart Lane.

• A second BU-UHD Research collaboration event was held to further explore opportunities for joint research. Discussions included opportunities for research to address health inequalities

Climate Assembly and NEW Student Sustainability Council – Get Your Voice Heard

Our BU Climate Assemblies are important events to allow students and staff to learn more about what BU are doing and importantly to have their voices heard and able to influence our approach. This year the feedback sessions covered heat decarbonisation and issues around sustainable food. We are launching a new Student Sustainability Council in 2023/24 which will bring together a group of students to support and challenge us in our approach to sustainability issues.

If you are a student or staff interested in joining, please email: sustainability@bournemouth.ac.uk

PC1.2, RP1.4, DI1.1, WS1.1, NA1.2, NA1.3, NA1.4, EB1.2, EB2.1

Objective 2: Aligning education and research with our crisis response

We aim for our education and research to both align with the crisis through course content, research outcomes and the way we deliver these.

Education

Target: all programmes to include the climate & ecological crisis in at least one unit per level (year) by 2025/26. In 2022, we repeated our comprehensive mapping to measure how many of our courses align to the climate & ecological crisis. We were pleased with the results which found that around two-third of courses did so. Of note, 88% and 83% of our programmes in the BU Business School and Faculty of Science & Technology, respectively, achieved this aim.

60% 35%

courses aligned to climate and ecological crisis courses aligned to climate & ecological crisis at every level

35% of our programmes included content around the climate & ecological crisis at every year of study, as per the CECAP aim. Our target was to reach 100% by 2022/23, and as this challenging goal hasn’t been achieved, we have extended it to 2025/26 and further prioritised work to support academics to achieve this aim. Work has included launching a bespoke area on Brightspace, our academic portal, with resources, training and guidance for academics. This has been well received by academics and is helping

us to share case studies to use. It is also helping to use opportunities at course re-validation to ensure that the CEC is embedded at every level.

Faculty of Media and Communications example:

Professor Fiona Cownie has embedded the CEC in her level

6 Relationship Marketing: “In my teaching I bring Climate Action into my discussions about Relationship Marketing, ethics and sustainability. I then revisit Climate Action in relation to discussions about authenticity, transparent communication and greenwashing. I don’t ‘deliver a Climate Crisis session’ instead I try to keep Climate Crisis via SDG 13 salient within students’ minds. Feedback from students is positive, reflected in this comment from our student rep.

“Relationship marketing has been one of the most enjoyable units I have taken over my university experience since the theory within this unit is highly relevant and applicable to real life. In particular, learning about B corporations and the United Nations sustainable development goals on this unit has been really insightful and useful in helping me within other units.”

Research

BU academics are working to further understanding and awareness of how we can most effectively tackle the climate and ecological crisis and support our global ecosystems. Here are some of the research projects we have been part of in the past academic year:

Nature-based Solutions for Climate Change in the UK: A Report by the British Ecological Society

BU academics Rick Stafford, Pippa Gillingham and Luciana Esteves contributed to authoring and editing a new landmark report on Nature-based Solutions for climate change and biodiversity produced by the British Ecological Society.

I truly believe it will be a landmark in setting the agenda and scientific and policy framework for the roll-out of nature-based solutions in the UK, and thereby to our collective aspiration to build a vibrant, resilient and resurgent natural world and stable climate in which our society and communities can thrive.

Professor Yadvinder Malhi CBE FRS, President-Elect, British Ecological Society, on the new report

This report has been picked up by House of Lords and Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST). Professor Rick Stafford gave oral evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee Marine NBS (Nature Based Solutions) on 15 September 2021. He was also interviewed for POST’s Blue Carbon POSTnote and undertook a secondment at Defra working with the Marine Science Coordination Committee (MSCC) and how the committee could function as the UK leaves the European Union.

Artificial Rockpools: a Strategy to Improve Coastal Ecosystems

As part of the €4.6million Marineff project (MARine INfrastructure EFFects), a team from Bournemouth University installed 114 of the artificial rockpools – shaped like a typical bathroom sink - across three sites in 2020. For the past three years they have been monitoring the species that inhabit them and comparing the results to species residing on the sea wall.

“As our coastlines become more developed, marine species are seeing their natural habitats replaced by sea defences which are harder to colonise,” explained Jess Bone, PhD researcher at Bournemouth University. “This project has shown how rockpools can help us to ensure nature can continue to survive in urban coastal spaces. They also give residents a chance to connect with nature, learning more about the wealth of wildlife just off the harbour’s edge and the role it plays in preserving our natural environment.” Jess concluded.

The findings show that this could be an effective way to improve coastal ecosystems by helping nature to thrive in urban ports and harbours.

Exploring the Impact of Carbon Markets on Rural Enterprises

Led by Dr Rounaq Nayak, the Carbon Exchange project will explore how natural capital investment markets could contribute to a successful rural economy.

Dr Nayak said “This project seeks to identify how rural enterprises such as farm businesses, SMEs, and land agents navigate, understand and exploit these opportunities, and how they overcome the potential limitations and barriers of voluntary carbon markets.”

Cattle Grazing on Purbeck Heath: Supporting Local Conservation Efforts

For over 10 years, teams of students have been working on a project led by Professor Anita Diaz in collaboration with the National Trust, Natural England and the RSPB on the Purbeck Heaths to monitor habitats and support conservation efforts in the area.

“We are hoping that the grazing cattle, pigs and ponies –as well as the resident sika deer – will create ecological corridors as they walk around and graze, and that these corridors will help other species move around the reserve,” said Professor Diaz Isla.

The team has recently started a new aspect to the project, attaching GPS tracking devices to cattle to monitor their movements around the heathland.

They hope that the long-term impact of releasing cattle into the nature reserve will reduce the need for human

Carbon markets are a tool for putting a price on carbon emissions, allowing the buying and selling of carbon credits or allowances. This can be used by buyers to offset their own emissions or sold to someone else who needs to offset their emissions.

By identifying how carbon markets are used and how they can contribute to a successful rural economy, the project will also help to inform local and regional policies and support rural enterprises’ engagement with carbon markets.

intervention in maintaining the balanced ecosystem needed for the many species that live there.

CECAP actions addressed:

ES1.1, BH2.3, DI1.1

Practice

We want to ensure that students don’t just gain the skills, knowledge and values to address the climate and ecological crisis in their curricular learning, but also within our co-curricular and extracurricular opportunities as well.

Product Design student win National Design Awards for solving real world problems

Two Product Design students from Bournemouth University won awards at the New Designers 2023 show in London for designing new products addressing real world problems around sustainability.

Jake Leach-Perry won the Brilliantly Useful Design award for his product Tundra which can be used in alpine environments to melt, filter and store snow, as a means of getting water in alpine activities in a fast and efficient way.

Amy Baker won the Creative Conscience - Best in Show for social and environmental impact award for her product Portia, a menstrual cup cleaner designed for convenient and discreet cleaning on the go.

Amy said “Receiving recognition from Creative Conscience for social and environmental impact has been an excellent morale booster that will encourage me to continue doing my best work in sustainable design”. CECAP

Challenging Consumption Culture: Exhibition by BU Marketing Students

Five works designed BU’s Marketing Communications with Advertising students were amongst the final 22 chosen for the “Good Life 2030 Exhibition”, hosted at the Tate Modern in London in April 2023. The purpose of the exhibition was to explore how the advertising industry can change our perceptions of what makes a “good life”, and the brief was to help people connect with what matters most in life.

It’s amazing that we have worked on a live brief that has the potential to create real change for the better of our planet.

Ellie Wheel worked with Charlie Coughtrey from AUB on her design which featured a charity shop window, designed to impress passers-by who may not usually think of shopping second hand.

Ellie said “I believe the advertising industry can effectively depict that a sustainable and healthy lifestyle does not have to imply a reduced quality of life and that we can still enjoy life in a sustainable manner”.

I believe the advertising industry can effectively depict that a sustainable and healthy lifestyle does not have to imply a reduced quality of life and that we can still enjoy life in a sustainable manner.

Emma Dodds and Charlotte Hardy chose the theme of turning nature from a distant relative to a close family member. They showed this through the motif of a family tree with the help of AUB student Vanya Vasileva who created and sourced the visuals for their poster.

Emma said “It’s amazing that we have worked on a live brief that has the potential to create real change for the better of our planet.”

Objective 3: Implementing Nature-based Solutions (NbS) to address the crisis

Our CECAP actions include identifying opportunities to support nature, encouraging students and staff to connect with nature and incorporating nature into education and research.

This year we have continued to implement the results of the ecological surveys we carried out last year and we have further developed our nature connection projects. We continue to benefit from previous investment in nature-based-solutions like rainwater harvesting and green roofs and we are investing more ideas for the future.

Ecological surveys

Since we carried out ecological surveys in summer 2022, we have continued to implement the recommendations for improvement across all our campuses. The species found in the surveys were added to the NBN atlas for the public to freely access.

50% of campus grass was left to grow

This year over 50% of campus took part in No Mow May. This national campaign, led by Plantlife, encourages individuals and companies to leave areas un-mowed during May to support wildflowers to grow and better support pollinators. We added more areas to our campaign and have left the area in front and behind the Poole Gateway Building with wildflowers through the year into November to provide habitat for nature. This year we added new benches within the wildflower area in front of PGB to help students and staff to be able to relax outside and connect with nature, surrounded by wildflowers.

Nature focused grounds procedures at Chapel Gate sports campus

Our sports campus has 65acres of space including a woodland. Therefore, it takes particular efforts to manage the site for the benefit of community sports use and also for nature. This year we implemented a procedure for staff to follow to help them understand exactly what to do, as recommended by the ecological survey, to support nature. The team have made posters which are displayed around the site to explain to users why our actions are important.

Our sports campus is used by our local community and this poster helps them to see how we manage the site to benefit nature.

Connection to nature

Nature connection

We encourage all our staff and students to spend time in nature to support their health and wellbeing. We share information on our internal staff intranet wellbeing pages and when staff come to our wellbeing staff looking for support. This information includes signposting to local nature areas near our campuses including through the Dorset Unlocked which is an interactive map created by volunteers at BU in collaboration with the National Trust, BCP at Hengistbury Head and the Dorset community and is a great way to find new outdoor spaces to explore.

At Chapel Gate woodlands

We have continued to develop our nature connection area in the woodlands at our Chapel Gate sports site. In the summer holidays this area is use for educational campus for local children. In term time we have had groups of students and staff taking part in outdoor activities for team building and dissertation de-stressing. Find out more about this area on the Chapel Gate website.

Wildlife cameras to support nature connection

This year we have worked with Wildlife Windows to install a bird box with a camera inside and a bird feeding station with a camera at our sports campus Chapel Gate. You can access the live stream from these cameras and see birds coming and going from your computer screen.

Bird and wildlife homes

We have also installed more bird and bat boxes across Talbot Campus and also added new hedgehog houses. We are planning to add special boxes for swifts which have been made for us by our local men’s shed in Southbourne. This project is in collaboration with the Christchurch Harbour Ornithological Group and Hampshire Swifts who advised us on the type of boxes and locations. The new boxes will be installed ready for the 2024 season, so look out for more swifts nesting on campus next year!

Rainwater harvesting

In 2022-23, 790,000 litres of water were collected from rainwater harvesting in Poole Gateway Building, Bournemouth Gateway Building and the Fusion Building. This is an increase of 10% compared to last year.

NA1.1, NA1.2, NA1.3, NA1.4, NA1.5, BH2.3, BH1.3, BH1.4, ES1.1

Video snapshot from our live bird feeding station at our sports campus

Objective 4: Reducing GHG emissions through engagement and behaviour change

We aim to mobilise the BU community to actively engage with and support our CECAP objectives by developing and implementing a range of inspiring and educational opportunities. Parts of our carbon footprint are heavily determined by student and staff behaviours so we are improving our campuses to make sure sustainable options are easier, more accessible, and more attractive so they can use their choices to make a difference.

Behaviour change

Fairtrade Award

We were proud to become one of only three universities to achieve the Fairtrade Award 3 stars under the Fairtrade Universities & Colleges (FTUC) scheme, ran by SOS-UK and the Fairtrade Foundation. The Award was the result of three years of work to embed Fairtrade and ethical purchasing throughout our supply chain, curriculum, and student opportunities, and involved student auditors to assess our work.

There has been a great deal of strong work undertaken by BU over the past two years, despite the challenges. This is commendable. The issues of sustainability and consumption remain high on the agenda, and have become integrated into the life of the institution.

Food (Olio and Too Good To Go)

Our caterers, Chartwells, have been focusing this year on reducing food waste. As part of this work, they have joined Too Good To Go and Olio: two food-sharing schemes that offer unwanted items that would go to waste either a reduced price or free, to be distributed amongst the community. As a result, we have saved 1196 meals and 2.6 tCO2e.

Chartwells also launched their innovative Social Kitchen: free cooking sessions to support students to learn how to cook well. Sessions have focused on Fairtrade and plantbased options to encourage environmentally sustainable and ethical cooking choices.

Waste

This year we introduced new recycling streams for crisp packets, sweet wrappers and stationery across both campuses. This adds to the existing streams of food waste, batteries, mixed-recyclables, and non-recyclables. We have recently introduced new bin signage with carefully considered images and messaging to encourage correct use of bins and reduce bin contamination. We have also had our waste contractor SUEZ come onto campus during Green Week to educate students and staff about how to correctly use the bins.

Non-recyclables collected are sent to a waste-to-energy facility, and estate waste such as wood and metal is collected separately. Our total waste continues to increase post-pandemic as activity levels increase on campus. Our total waste produced on-campus, in our Student Village and from construction activities was 563 tonnes of waste and we recycled 70%. Excluding construction waste, we produced 303 tonnes of waste and recycled 59%. We are working hard to drive down the amount of waste we produce per FTE students and staff. It is our goal to produce less than 20kg of waste per FTE and this year we achieved 14.07kg waste per FTE. It’s important that we focus on reducing the overall volume of waste per person, rather than just on the recycling rate, because this could drive

FTUC project team

Waste avoidance

We are focused on avoiding waste and this year have worked closely with our catering providers Chartwells to develop a scheme to reduce the number of disposable coffee cups we sell on campus. Our scheme is designed to enable the sale of a cup which can be either reused or returned and swapped for a token for a clean cup at the next visit. This is our ‘Returnable Cup Scheme’ and is a step forward in helping avoid typical concerns such as forgetting to bring a reusable cup and not wanting to carry a dirty cup around. The scheme launches in September 2023 and we will report next year on progress.

Save 30p and collect stamps with every visit

Returnable cup scheme

How does it work?

Join the returnable cup scheme for £3.95

Option 1:

Keep your cup for as long as you like.

Option 2:

Return your cup to any Chartwells Café and get a clean one.

Option 3:

Return your cup to any Chartwells Café and get a token for a new cup on your next visit.

Every cup is professionally cleaned before it is used again.

No refund applies.

the wrong behaviour. An example of this is reducing food waste through projects like ‘Too good to go’ would actually reduce our recycling rate, but it is much better to avoid the waste completely by selling or donating it for consumption, than by sending it to be recycled. Therefore, in our CECAP actions we have removed the action to ‘increase recycling rate’ (WS1.3) and now focus on the action to reduce waste produced per person (WS1.4).

The waste sent to landfill in 2022/23 included nonrecyclable, reusable or recoverable construction materials. SUBU’s Big Give, which annually collects and donates unwanted student items before they move out to charities, this year we donated 2026 bags and is estimated to raise over £15,000 for the British Heart Foundation. We also supported the charity Prama collecting items to donate to them.

SUBU Recycling Roadshow

SUBU expanded their Recycling Roadshow this year. This campaign aims to help students understand how to recycle both in halls and for when they move into private accommodation. The Roadshows are supported by the community wardens. Community Warden Scheme is run by SUBU, BU and AUB and supported by Bournemouth Borough Council. The Wardens are a team of students paid to work each week, patrolling the main student roads in Winton, Wallisdown and Charminster. They are there to support both students and permanent residents, and to help them integrate together in the local community. They can help students with anything related to housing; from dealing with landlords and estate agents to noise, parking, bins or burglaries.

Engagement

Carbon Literacy Training

We continued our Carbon Literacy training for students, staff and alumni to educate our BU community about the climate crisis, its implications for society and what they can do to reduce their carbon footprint. This one-day course has a specific BU focus to share what we are doing to mitigate and adapt to climate change before participants create pledges to reduce their carbon footprint, both as an individual and within a wider group. Over this academic year, we trained 39 students, 34 staff.

Climate Fresk Training

We hope

across BU so that they can use this interactive training tool with their students

This year we launched a new, interactive and sciencebased training programme called Climate Fresk. It is an international scheme which uses a workshop and gamestyle of learning which we find really engaging for students and staff. It is helping us to teach about the climate science from the IPCC in a new and fun way. This academic year we have trained 18 staff and students and of these seven have become facilitators.

We are proud to say that staff in our Business School who became facilitators are planning to deliver the workshop for partner organisations in Vietnam.

to train more staff

Eco-Entrepreneurs Fund

The Eco-Entrepreneurs Fund in partnership with Santander Universities UK aims to find and support fledgling businesses, created by BU students and alumni, which have an environmental benefit. In its second year, seven businesses who presented in front of a panel of judges were awarded £6,500 in grants ranging between £500 and £2,500.The winners this year include Harry Shepherd, a final year student studying BA (hons) Business and Management whose business ‘Collectea’, aims to incentivise and encourage the use of reusable cups to help prevent the 2.5 billion single use cups going to waste every year in the UK. Harry was awarded £1000 to progress his idea and said:

“Signing up for the Eco-Entrepreneurs fund has become such a highlight of my uni experience! It has given me great confidence in my future as an entrepreneur, and has allowed me to connect with some of the super talented

Climate Action Month

In March 2023, we once again hosted our Climate Action Week, with a focus on community action. The week was an opportunity for students, staff and the broader community to join us in taking action for the benefit of both people and the planet. We arranged a variety of BU-specific events and events within the local area to foster a sense of community, including a talk by Professor Adrian Newton about environmental change within the New Forest, a wellbeing walk through nature, and a Climate Assembly on Sustainable Food and Waste. We also hosted a talk by climate scientist Bors Hulesch about how to tackle to climate crisis, a women’s social bike ride, a spirituality and well-being fair, GreenFest at Poole Brewery, and the Bournemouth Vegan Market.

entrepreneurs who pitched on the day. The pitching experience and the funding I won has really given me the boost needed to kickstart my career as an entrepreneur, and I will forever be grateful for this experience!”

Nick Cooper from Gaia Card, a membership scheme which connects customers with sustainable businesses was back this year. The Gaia team have grown their membership base ten-fold since last year and the entrepreneurs’ received further funding this year recognising the benefit their business has on encouraging retail outlets to be more sustainable through the stringent sustainability criteria set by Gaia to be part of their platform. Chris Wilmoth is an engineering graduate from BU and the judges were impressed with his ideas for developing farming technology to make sustainable vegetable oil using microalgae.

Students and graduates pitched their business ideas to a panel including Santander’s Remy Foucher

Climate Justice Now!

In 2022 we delivered the second Climate Justice Now! debate programme. This is a six-week skillsbuilding programme hosted with Middlesex University London. Students received training from sector experts on international climate politics, Fairtrade and food security, before taking part in a public debate. This recognises that the climate and ecological crisis is intrinsically linked to all UN SDGs and is an issue of social justice, equality and ethics. The participating students gained a great insight into the interconnectedness of environmental and social sustainability as well as skills in debating, teamwork and communication.

Net Zero Teams

This year we launched a new internal BU certification scheme to support and reward staff who are helping BU to achieve its targets set out in the CECAP. We named the scheme ‘Net Zero Teams’ as it starts with a group of staff making a collective commitment to reduce their environmental impact. This is followed by the completion of up to 35 activities, categorised into: leadership, energy, travel, stuff, food, and connect. These activities are designed to encourage teams to take action across key emissions areas and support structured departmental action and fun events. Teams can achieve up to 100 points, and become either a Bronze, Silver, or Gold certified team.

This approach increases carbon footprint literacy across BU and enables staff to aim their area and level impact in a way that suits them. We hope that Net Zero Teams will offer a comprehensive toolkit for staff, teams, and departments who want to reduce their emissions, support sustainability and, be recognised for doing so.

SustainaWHAT?!

SustainaWHAT?! is an innovative series of events for Postgraduate Research Students to collaborate and identify opportunities for connecting their research with the sustainability agenda. Bournemouth University co-hosted SustainaWHAT?! with University of Newcastle and Cardiff throughout 2022/23.

Our aim was to bring a sustainability lens, through the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) to Postgraduate Researchers (PGRs) projects. We sought to develop a range of competencies applicable to PGRs’ own research, their personal and professional contexts. These competencies included skills of interdisciplinary collaboration. We developed a network of PGRs at the three universities who could continue to connect and pursue their interests in sustainability going forward.

BU recruited two PGR leads, Jack Olley and Michael George. Jack and Michael worked with the academic lead Professor Fiona Cownie to co-create a series of SustainaWHAT?! events with peers from Newcastle and Cardiff.

Our first event ‘The Gathering’ was on campus at the three universities with hybrid connections so that we could share our experiences. We looked at the UNSDGs and considered how understanding sustainability could enhance research bids and PGR employability. Professor Adrian Newton and Professor Lee Ann Fenge shared their thoughts about how sustainability awareness can enhance the quality of research bids. Matt Desmier took the PGR audience through ways in which an understanding of sustainability can make graduates more employable.

Our second event ‘The Challenge’ saw multi-disciplinary teams each with PGRs from the three universities working on a country based sustainability challenge, presenting their ideas to a panel of judges, working on feedback to create and submit a final research proposal which addressed the brief.

Our final event ‘The Celebration’ announced the winning teams and shared evaluations of the event to inform our future plans. Reflecting on how SustainaWHAT had impacted their personal intentions, one participant commented “I will more environmentally friendly, study and speak with groups more about climate issues and the effects on society.” (The Challenge, April).

If you are a student or staff interested in any of these opportunities, please email sustainability@bournemouth.ac.uk or look out for them on our central communication channels.

PGR team who delivered SustainaWHAT?! at BU campus this year

Sustainable commuting travel

Sustainable travel events and engagement

This year, we have hosted our usual array of active travel events. This includes the start of term’s ‘Big Bike Sale’, the ‘Be Safe/Be Seen’ campaign, promotion of the ‘6 reasons to cycle campaign’ as part of Climate Action month, supported National Cycle to Work Day and held a cycle fair as part of National Bike Month held in May.

Schemes and initiatives

Our BU Bicycle User Group now has over 130 members, made up of staff and students from across BU. The community teams page has grown since its creation and allows members to share experiences, give each other tips and suggestions, provide feedback to the Transport Team and raise issues or concerns.

The Cycle to Work scheme was used by 28 staff between August 2022 – July 2023 which had a combined value of £45,211.29. This is slightly lower than the previous year which hit record highs in both the number of sales and the combined values.

In 2021, we joined the Love to Ride platform to encourage more staff to take up cycling. This past year we have seen huge increase in number of trips recorded on the platform. The total number of rides has nearly doubled compared to Year 1 of the scheme. In 2021, 1611 rides were completed and in 2022 this rose to 3025 rides completed. In the Cycle September 2022 challenge, Bournemouth University came 2nd place in the Education University UK leaderboard. We continued our free Bike Doctor Sessions: running fortnightly to provide free bike services to students and staff. Between August 2022 – July 2023, the bike doctor services 237 bikes. We also ran a bike self-maintenance session inviting people to bring their bike to work on alongside our bike doctor and learn basic bike maintenance and repair skills.

BU fund the Bike Doctor to provide free servicing of bikes for staff and students. Dates are published at our cycle compounds.

Travel Plan progress

The revised Travel Plan was launched in 2019 and includes campus-specific single occupancy vehicle (SOV) targets for both staff and students. The 2022/23 commuter travel surveys show an increase in staff using SOV (up from 42% in 2012 to 53%) which is the same level as last year. Our target is for SOV use to fall below 37% by 2025.

We will continue to promote active travel in 2023/24 with renewed contracts with suppliers, physical events and promotional activities. Work is underway to deliver a new cycle compound at the Talbot Campus which will include enhanced security, lighting and accessibility features.

Sustainable business Travel

This year we have issued BU Staff Business Travel Sustainability Guidance. It aims to provide recommendations on when, why, and how staff should travel for business purposes through information and tools to support practices that address sustainability by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and supporting equality. Business travel is any travel associated with university work including, meetings, conferences, training, teaching and research. The guidance does not cover commuter travel or travel between campuses.

The guidance is built around the Tyndall Centre Sustainable Travel Decision Tree which aims to identify low-carbon travel alternatives and maximize the benefits of travel emissions. Our guidance breaks this down and helps staff to reduce the impact of their travel. We share the guidance on our staff intranet and also on our website for external parties to view to help share best practice.

Visit w ww.bournemouth.ac.uk/about/sustainability/travel-transport

Extract from our BU

Staff Business Travel

Sustainability Guidance

CECAP actions addressed:

BH1.4, BH1.5, BH2.2, BH2.3, NA1.3, NA1.4, NA1.5, DI1.1, DI1.2

Objective 5: Rapidly reduce GHG emissions through technology solutions

Objective 6: Implementing net zero carbon capital development

Core to our CECAP is reducing our emissions by 50% by 2030/31 against our 2018/19 baseline. Achieving this includes implementing projects across all activities which reduce our emissions. This requires renewable energy and water technologies, optimising building energy and water use, and moving from gas to electricity for heat and hot water.

The CECAP is embedded into our Estates Development planning and budgets. This enabled us to continue investing in technology to reduce our GHG emissions and make plans for further decarbonisation over the period to 2025 with a £1.25m investment of BU funds being made. This is supported by external funding from the Low Carbon Skills Fund (£99k) and the Public Sector Decarbonisation Fund (£493k).

Technology and energy projects completed in 2022-23

New solar PV array for Poole House

Poole House is a core teaching and support building on Talbot Campus. In March 2023, we added a huge new solar array on the tower that will generate around 100,000kWh every year. The new system is expected to save over 20 tonnes of CO2e each year, equivalent to 15 return flights to New York from the UK.

This is the 4th array

to Poole House directly and during some summer weekends these systems generated enough power to operate the building using 100% solar energy generated for the first time ever.

New active travel facility has showered powered by Solar Thermal

This year we invested £250,000 in a fantastic new facility for students and staff to help make it easier to cycle, run or walk to campus. The changing rooms can be reached from the outside making it easier to access and the new facility also includes lockers and a drying room, to encourage active travel in all weathers. The showers are powered by the sun reducing the carbon emissions from the new facility.

Continued to replace lighting with LED low energy lighting

It is now a standard procedure to replace any relevant lighting with LED low energy lighting. Over the year, we installed more than 600 LED light fittings across the Talbot Campus. This is estimated to save around 4 tCO2e per year and approximately 16,000kWh.

The new array fits 263 solar panels on the tower of Poole House.

Inside our new active travel facilities on the ground floor of Poole House

The maintenance and sustainability team switching on the new Poole House solar array. From left to right: Lois Betts, Iain Cootes, Carey Hamilton and Dave Archer.

connected

24 new Electric Vehicle charging points on campus

To support staff who may not be able to charge an electric car at home, we have installed new EV charging points at both Talbot Campus (10 charging spaces behind Dorset and Christchurch House) and the Lansdowne campus (11 spaces at BGB and Studland House), the remaining 3 spaces are for estates vehicles. The chargers were part funded by the Workplace Charging Scheme grant which helped support the project costs. We hope staff will find the chargers easy to use and enable more staff to make the switch to electric vehicles over the coming years.

Material re-use to avoid waste in capital projects

We are always looking for opportunities to reuse materials in our operational and capital projects. This year we are working to replace the changing rooms at our Chapel Gate sports campus and are pleased that we were able to up-cycle the wooden benches to avoid wasting the cedar wood. The wood was cleaned and re-cut to size and achieved a fantastic finish. Slabs and bricks have also been cleaned and reused in the project. We are pleased to have been able to reuse old cycle shelters by moving these up to our Chapel Gate campus.

We reused the cedar wooden benches in the remodelled changing rooms

Improved building fabric to reduce heat loss

This year there has been a lot of remodelling activity on Talbot Campus. This has improved building fabric including a new entrance for our library which will reduce heat loss from the entrance as the previous doors were highlighted as causing substantial heat loss.

CECAP actions addressed:

RE1.1, EB1.1, EB1.2, EB1.8, IT1.3

Sustainable IT

Current data suggests BU data centres are responsible for 12% of our total electricity use. Data from 2022/23 showed the data centre in Jurassic House used 697MWh and in Studland House, 258MWh. Consumption was slightly higher than previous years as the IT team worked on changes to the data centre infrastructure. Consumption is expected to reduce once the upgrades are complete.

The Sustainable IT working group have continued to meet bi-monthly to address sustainable IT issues and support delivery of the Sustainable IT Policy. We have been tracking energy consumption against the objective set by the Director of IT to achieve a 15% reduction in power consumption of IT equipment in data centres each year. This year IT have replaced some data centre equipment with new technology which is expected to use around 50% less power. This is part of our work to improve efficiency and do more with less. The new equipment was installed in summer 2023 and the old equipment was turned off at the end of August. At the time of writing the year on year saving in energy consumption of the data centres was around 14%. We will continue to monitor this into next year.

All IT users are encouraged to follow the Sustainable IT Policy including switching off monitor screens and ensuring IT equipment goes into standby mode when not in use.

Operational energy management

In 2022/23 we continued to closely monitor our energy and water consumption. This allowed us to spot and address any usage anomalies and identify opportunities to reduce operational energy consumption. The work to improve lighting controls in Bournemouth Gateway Building was completed and new thermostats were installed in the Student Village; enhancing controls across our buildings is key to optimizing their energy efficiency.

This year we have continued to improve controls through the Building Management System so that ventilation and heating run times are more aligned with building opening hours. We continue to analyse the effects of changes to building usage and can use this to determine which spaces are more energy and cost effective to use for various events or teaching spaces.

The Energy Team meet regularly with maintenance and IT to discuss energy and water consumption patterns and identify potential energy reduction projects and operational strategies. This collaborative approach not only maximizes energy savings but also promotes a culture of continuous improvement and sustainability throughout the organisation.

We developed the first draft of our Heat Decarbonisation Plan

We used funding from the Low Carbon Skills Fund (£99,300) to develop our Heat Decarbonisation Plan for 21 of our buildings across Talbot Campus, Chapel Gate, Lansdowne campus and Yeovil. The funding was used to carry out building assessments to identify opportunities to transition to low carbon or renewable heating sources. This included technical engineering calculations about boiler replacements with air source heat pumps and recommendations for building fabric improvements such as new windows and insulation. Thermal imagery was used to understand where heat loss is occurring in six of our buildings.

CECAP actions addressed:

EB1.1 EB1.2, EB2.1, EB2.2, EB2.3, EB4.1, EB5.1, IT1.2

Technology plans for 2022/23

Heat decarbonisation of Talbot Campus

The heat decarbonisation study was used to support an application to the government’s Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. This application was successful and BU were initially awarded £1.4m towards replacing gas boilers with air source heat pumps in three buildings on Talbot Campus. Upon tendering for the work this budget was not sufficient to cover the cost of this level of change, so the focus has moved to one building on Talbot Campus, Dorset House. This building will be refitted with air source heat pumps in the winter of 2023 and the expected completion is March 2024. We will also be replacing the roof with better insultation to reduce heat loss.

More Solar PV

We are adding new solar panels onto the roof of Dorset House and expect to spend around £100,000 on this new system to be ready by the end of 2023. This is part of our continued plan to add more sources of renewable energy on campus to achieve 10% of electricity from onsite renewables by 2025 (up from 5% in 2020). Once this is completed, we will be proposing more solar PV if budgets allow.

New solar thermal for Christchurch House and Chapel Gate

As part of our work to move away from fossil gas we are using solar thermal technology and this year plan to add a new system at Christchurch House on Talbot Campus and also at Chapel Gate. We find this technology a useful way to contribute to heating hot water and for Chapel Gate it will help us to use less LPG gas as the site is not on the gas national grid.

New cycle compound for Talbot Campus

Next year we will be replacing the cycle compound behind Dorset House with a new improved secure compound. It will include space for adapted cycles as well as for charging electric bikes. The new compound will have a covered outdoor area for visitor bikes and Dr Bike activities. We are making plans for this new compound and hope to be able to include a green roof to support nature.

Continued energy conservation projects

We have a rolling programme of installation of energy conservation measures including replacing lighting with LEDs, with the focus on areas across the Talbot Campus such as circulation, storage and service areas and on the Lansdowne Campus replacement of lighting in the underground carpark area in Studland House. We also plan to look for more opportunities to move to passive cooling approaches rather than energy intensive air conditioning systems. This is building on our trial installation of a free cooling system in the Weymouth House comms room last year.

Intelligent campus

Our research this year showed that we already have much of the foundation of an intelligent campus with our Building Management System enabling us to closely control HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) equipment remotely. This year we have progressed investigating how we can use sensor technology to better understand campus utilisation and enable closer energy management of our buildings. We have identified trial buildings and are now preparing for procurement of a trial approach to intelligent campus. This extends our central focus on using data to drive sustainability.

We have increased our renewable generation capacity

We have worked hard to increase our renewable generation capacity on site and this year our estate increased its number of Solar Photovoltaic arrays from nine to ten thanks to the addition of the new solar PV on Poole House tower.

On site renewable energy and low carbon technologies contributed 6% for electricity and 13% for heating our buildings. The amount of electricity produced on site increased from 560 MWh to 600 MWh.

Our annual on-site energy and heat production could power 208 average UK homes and heat 87 for a year!

Emissions avoided from renewable and low carbon on-site generation

The below chart shows the emissions avoided from electricity generation on site (Solar PV) and low carbon heat sources (ground source heat pumps and biomass) each year since 2018/19.

This graph has been updated from previous years so that it now takes into account the additional electricity required to run the ground source heat pumps. This now shows the net emissions avoided from renewable and low carbon generation.

Objective 7: Managing climate change risk

BU’s Climate Change Risk Register sits within our Environment and Energy Management System and documents the risks posed to our operations because of climate change. As these risks become more common its vital that we progress mitigation and adaptation measures via our CECAP whilst also further embedding understanding of these risks across BU.

Our Climate Change Risk Register includes a range of scenarios including extreme flooding events, hot weather events, low temperature incidents, wildfires, failure of national/regional electricity, gas, water supply and IT infrastructure, failure/disruption of supply chains and infectious diseases. It includes details of the impact and mitigation measures as well as the adaptations required in the short, medium and long term. All these risks feed across the CECAP: for example, adaptation to the risk of Extreme Flooding Events is aligned with our building standards where all new builds must include rainwater harvesting. Similarly for hot weather events our Biodiversity Group have been considering opportunities for tree planting, building shading through canopies and other window shading techniques to reduce impact on campus users.

Climate Change risk on the BU Corporate Risk Register

In recognition of the serious impact that the Climate and Ecological Crisis will have on BU, we have been preparing to add the risk onto the main BU Corporate risk register. This means it will be considered at the highest levels of leadership. The wording used links to both mitigation through planning for our net zero emissions goal of 2030/31 and also adaptation to the changes which climate change will bring. This will enable the risk to be considered alongside other corporate risks, so that appropriate planning is in place to mitigate risk and realise opportunities.

Learning across the university sector

BU are members of the EAUC Managing Climate Risk Community of Practice. This is a place for universities to share their work around climate risk and learn from each other. This year Lois Betts, BU Sustainability Manager and Shona Nairn Smith, Head of Operations and Resilience have attended online workshops with other universities. This year has included workshops led by Loughborough University about climate adaptation which have provided valuable next steps for developing our climate adaptation plans which we will use next year as we develop our Estates Development Framework 3.

AFRICAB: building resilience in Sierra Leone

Our Disaster Management Centre continued its AFRICAB project based in West Africa, which seeks to assimilate, accommodate, reduce and overcome resistance factors in order to enhance the governance of disaster risk and enable disaster management frameworks to function more efficiently. The three-year project has been based on constructive cooperation with disaster management partners in Sierra Leone, including the newly created National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) and Freetown City Council (FCC), and involved extensive field research and practitioner engagement.

The project, led by Professor Lee Miles, has produced numerous impacts that have and are likely to continue to enhance disaster management in Sierra Leone. At the national level, the AFRICAB Final Report included eight thematic areas and 27 key recommendations for national policymakers and stakeholders. The report was launched on 30 September 2021 and was endorsed by Chief Minister Jacob Jusu Saffa and Director General of NDMA, Lt Gen (Rtd) Brima Sesay. You can download the report here. The National Disaster Managment Agency Service Charter 2023, which incorporates AFRICAB recommendations, was another positive outcome of AFRICAB. Additionally, AFRICAB was recognised by the Assocation to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the world’s largest association of Business Schools, as an Innovation That Inspires for 2023. This a scheme that recognises initiatives conducted by Business Schools that have an impact across the globe.

The Evaluating Local Disaster Management in Sierra Leone (EVALDIS), which builds upon the co-operation of AFRICAB, provides a contemporary research evaluation of the existing state of disaster management within provinces, districts, wards, and local communities. EVALDIS involves input from 259 stakeholders, and the main EVALDIS report was endorsed by the Government of Sierra Leone to ensure that leaders are as equipped as possible to deal with disasters and build resilience.

CECAP actions addressed: ES1.1, GO1.2, GO1.14

Objective 8: Data management and reporting

In order to make informed decisions we work hard to have a robust system for data capture and reporting which we are continually improving. Our Environmental and Energy Management System (EEMS) is externally certified to ISO14001 and ISO50001.

Measuring

Energy

• Direct manual meter reads

• Automatic meter reading (half hourly data)

• Financial data (invoices).

Waste, food & procurement

• Pay-by-weight automatic monitoring

• Visual waste audits

• NetPositive Futures supplier engagement tool

• Contract meetings with suppliers

• Sales information from catering outlets.

Travel

• Annual travel survey

• Direct data on journeys made from UNIBUS contract

• Automatic business travel booking data

• Student open day travel data.

Monitoring

SmartSpaces alarms

Invoice and manual data validated in Systems Link software

Weekly data review for energy by Sustainability & Energy Analyst

Monthly contract meetings

Annual reporting to Sustainability Committee

Analysis

Monthly reports produced and reported at Estates

Senior Management Team meetings

Monthly reports provided for targeted user groups

Annual ISO50001 energy review

Identification of significant energy users

Identification of opportunities for improvement

Targets and objective-setting

Energy projects and estate changes

CECAP Annual Report created

Emissions and energy usage is reported monthly and is annually reviewed by the Sustainability Committee. The annual ISO50001 Energy Review assesses the impact of variables such as estates size or weather on our energy usage and identifies areas of Significant Energy Use at the building, user or equipment level, and Opportunities for Improvement which are used to set targets, objectives and to identify potential projects. For key areas, including waste and transport, environmental targets and monitoring are embedded into contract standards to ensure we can gather and monitor this information.

This year, we have completed the metering upgrade project at Chapel Gate, where the addition of 17 sub-meters has given us remote access to consumption data and a greater understanding of where energy is being on site. Sub-meters have also been added to the new solar thermal system in Poole House, and to more areas in reception, allowing for more in-depth monitoring of specific areas of the building. in addition to the monthly reports provided for the Estates Senior Management Team, this year we have expanded our monthly reporting to target specific user groups on campus. Monthly energy and water consumption reports are now provided for the IT department (covering data centres and comms rooms), SUBU (covering the student union-run buildings), Chartwells (covering the catering outlets and kitchens on campus) and our sports campus at Chapel Gate. Providing these stakeholders with insight into where are how they use energy is the first step in supporting them to reduce their consumption and track the impact of changes they make to their operations.

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data

A comprehensive guidance document has been developed to improve greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data management and reporting accuracy. The guidance includes definitions of organisational boundaries and activities within/excluded from GHG calculations, specifies reporting/ base years, provides information for annual reports and outlines activities within/outside each scope. We present the total gross GHG emissions for scopes 1, 2, and 3 with comparisons to baselines and targets. The guidance document establishes a policy for base year recalculation, suggests data verification procedures and outlines data sources and responsibilities. For full transparency, we report any changes made to figures reported in previous years and maintain a log of recommended future changes.

The table below shows the log of changes made in this years’ reporting.

Changes made to reporting methods in 2022/23 with reasons and impact.

We aim to continually improve our reporting, particularly around key emissions areas. For example, in recognition of the large environmental impact from procurement, we have begun to collate information on emissions form our supply chain. Following the release of the Standardised Carbon Emissions Framework (SCEF) by the EAUC (The Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education) in January 2023, we aim to align with their guidance to report the upstream emissions of goods and services purchased for the operation of the organisation. The basic level of reporting for this area is to use the spend of our supply chain and report the total CO2e using the HESCET tool (Higher Education Supply Chain Emissions Tool). This is not yet included in our total emissions reported.

External reporting

Estates

Management Return (EMR)

HESA, the Higher Education Statistics Agency, collate and publish environmental information from the Estates management record data returned by universities across the UK. We submit annually to the EMR data across categories including buildings and space, energy, emissions and waste, and transport. You can see all the published information on the HESA website.

THE Impact Rankings (SDG Report)

THE Impact Rankings assess universities contributions to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and forms a global benchmark. BU has submitted data to the Ranking since its launch in 2019 and for the past three iterations have done so for all 17 SDGs. The Ranking asks for data across our operational practice, education and research impact. It covers areas such as governance, environmental management, student support, equality and access activity and collaborative, impactful research. You can read the 2023 methodology here

People and Planet

People & Planet’s University League is the only comprehensive and independent league table of UK universities ranked by environmental and ethical performance. It is compiled annually by the UK’s largest student campaigning network, People & Planet. The League table uses information on our website to address its criteria, so we do not formally need to report to it. Nonetheless, we annually take stock of its reporting and review it at the Sustainability Committee to address areas it highlights for improvement. You can find the latest League table here

SDG Accord

We have signed up to the SDG Accord: a sector-wide commitment to supporting the SDGs within our institutions. We contribute annually to the SDG Accord reporting which asks us to reflect on the SDGs we have been, and plan to be, taking the most action on and to share areas of best practise to support other institutions to further their own action. Collaboration is a key part of achieving and support these global goals effectively.

Race to Zero

Powered by the UN Environment Programme, EAUC & Second Nature - Race to Zero is a global campaign to rally leadership and action in the education sector. Since we’ve pledged as part of this scheme to reach net zero emissions as soon as possible, this report also represents our annual update on the actions we are taking towards this target.

CECAP actions addressed:

BH2.1, RP1.1, RP1.2, RP1.4, RP1.5

Next steps

Last year we shared our seven priorities for 2022-23 and we would like to share our progress with these as a summary in the table below:

Our campus

We said:

We will increase the amount of energy we generate on site and add a new solar PV array on Poole House tower, and a new solar thermal system for hot water for active travel.

We did:

Complete a huge new PV system on Poole House with 236 new panels switched this on in March 2023. We did add a new solar thermal for Poole House active travel.

We said we would produce our first Heat Decarbonisation Plan in 2023 and identify our road map for removal of gas for heating.

If we are successful in gaining more funding we plan to use this to install low carbon heat sources in 2023 to save 220 tonnes of carbon equivalent.

We said we would continue to implement that recommendations from the ecological surveys.

We were successful in gaining more funding from the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme to pay for low carbon heat sources. But this wasn’t enough funding to take our planned three buildings off gas. So we have diverted funds from other energy projects and focused on one building.

This year we have changed the way we manage our grasslands for nature and have over 50% of grass included in No Mow campaigns.

Next steps:

In Oct 2023 we will install new 85KWp solar PV on Dorset House in 2023. We will also add new solar thermal systems for Christchurch house and Chapel Gate to reduce gas used for heating water.

This will help us to progress towards our target of 1MWp solar electricity generated on site by 2025.

In 23/24 we will start on site to take Dorset House off gas, saving c.71 tCO2e. We will also be improving building fabric with a new roof and the solar PV will help with the extra demand for electricity.

We need to continue to develop our Heat Decarbonisation Plan and review the costs as it’s more expensive that we first predicted.

We will continue to implement the recommendations.

We said:

We will create more student opportunities

We will repeat our university wide mapping of course alignment to climate crisis and UN SDGs.

We said we would support staff to make more sustainable travel choices

Our people

We did:

We continued to offer Carbon Literacy training, Eco Entrepreneurs Fund and the Climate Justice Now programme and we launched Climate Fresk and SustainaWhat?! For PGR students.

We completed this mapping to identify that two-thirds of courses include the climate crisis in their content.

We published guidance for staff to make their essential travel more sustainable.

Next steps:

We plan to expand Climate Fresk through staff delivering to their students and explore other impactful collaborative communication routes.

We will repeat this mapping in winter 2023 to map progress against our CECAP objective.

We will continue to support more sustainable travel choices and will make policy changes to support this. We said we will investigate ways to measure the actions our suppliers are taking to reduce their impact.

We continued our a trial of NetPositive to capture actions our suppliers are taking. This has been difficult to populate and improvements have been made to the system which we hope will simplify it for next year.

We are working to calculate the carbon footprint of what we buy and now that the university wide SCEF is released we hope to use this to help us report procurement emissions by 2025/26.

Appendix 1: Emissions Report

Executive Summary

The purpose of this appendix is to provide transparent accounting for the GHG emissions reported in the CECAP report including the scope, boundaries, data sources and activities currently included in the reporting.

BU follows written guidance for the calculation of the GHG emissions footprint to align reporting more closely with best practice. This is to support objective 8 of the CECAP and several of the data management CECAP actions. The main sources for this work were the CECAP, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard and the UK government’s Environmental Reporting Guidelines. There have been no methodology changes this year.

In 2018/19, BU’s GHG emissions across all scopes were 6,723 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) for the year. This year the

is

Table 1: Summary of BU’s GHG emissions back to baseline year

Introduction

Principles

The aim of this report is to align BU’s GHG emissions reporting to best practices (e.g. the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard and the UK government’s Environmental Reporting Guidelines) and improve data management along the following principles (based on the GHG’s standard):

• Relevance: the inclusion of appropriate sources that reflect the emissions of BU and supports decision making by BU

• Completeness: an inventory of GHG sources that covers as much of the GHG emissions produced by BU as possible

• Consistency: the use of consistent data sources and calculations with any changes made to methods, activities or boundaries documented.

• Transparency: the recording of data sources for audit and addressing all issues clearly in reports

• Accuracy: the reduction of estimates and uncertainties around emissions amounts by collection of the appropriate data.

Boundaries

The CECAP recommends the use of the UK Government Environmental Reporting Guidelines to define organisational boundaries. As per Annex A of the Reporting Guidelines (and noted in the CECAP) BU is using an operational control boundary. Under the operational control approach, a company accounts for 100% of emissions from operations over which it or one of its subsidiaries has operational control. This allows BU to measure and control

emissions that the organisation can take steps to reduce. The GHG standard notes that having operational control “does not mean that a company necessarily has authority to make all decisions concerning an operation. Operational control does mean that a company has the authority to introduce and implement its operating policies.”

Reporting dates and base year

This report covers the year 1st August 2022 to 31st July 2022. The base year is 1st August 2018 to 31st July 2019. BU’s actual emissions targets are SBT targets created with the SBTi tool V1.1 “well below 2 degrees” model.

Operational Boundary and Scopes

In order to fully account for BU’s GHG emissions and identify future opportunities for reduction, activities across scopes 1, 2 and 3 need to be accurately recorded. Scope 1 to 3 are defined in the Table 3. Methods of data collection and calculation of emissions have been defined for each emissions source that BU reports on (see Emissions by Source for 2022/23 section, below).

Scopes 1 and 2 are currently recorded fully and the table indicates which areas of Scope 3 are only partially recorded, or not recorded at all. BU is working to expand the inventory of scope 3 activities that are being reported to align with Standardised Carbon Emissions Framework (SCEF) which was released as part of a larger roadmap EAUC in January 2023. In particular, we are working to calculate emissions from purchased goods and services and these have been identified as a priority, given the likely amount of emissions and the opportunity for BU to engage with suppliers to reduce these significantly.

Table 2: BU’s GHG emissions against CECAP targets per year

In 2022/23, the Scopes 2, 3 and total emissions SBTi targets were met, but not the Scope 1 target.

Scope Direct/ Indirect Source types GHG category (Scope 3 only)

Scope 1 Direct Emissions associated with sources that are owned or controlled by the reporting organisation.

Scope 2 Indirect Emissions from generation of purchased energy

Scope 3 Indirect 1. Upstream emissions from activities that occur from sources not owned or controlled by the reporting organisation

1. Natural Gas Natural Gas

2. Fleet Fuel

3. Refrigerants & research-based f-gas Refrigerants Yes

4. Other Fuels LPG Yes Biomass Yes

5. Land-related emissions and livestock Land and livestock N/A Methane

1. Purchased Electricity Grid electricity Yes

2. Purchased Renewable Energy Grid electricity Yes

3. Heat & Steam District Heating / steam N/A

1. Purchased goods and services e.g. emissions from procurement/purchasing.

2. Capital Goods e.g. new build/refurbishment

3. Fuel and energy related activities not included in scopes 1 & 2

Water

Currently not reported except water and wastewater Wastewater

Currently not reported

Electricity transmission and distribution

4. Upstream transport and distribution e.g. delivery of goods to site

Fuel for transportation of goods to the institution

5. Waste generated in Operations Disposal and treatment of waste, recycling and wastewater

6. Business travel Rail

Flight Open day travel

Electricity transmission and distribution included. Wellto-tank for LPG not included

Currently not reported

Yes

7. Employee and student commuting, staff homeworking

Rail and flights included. Grey fleet, coach travel, ferry travel and vehicle hire currently excluded. Open Day travel included

UNIBUS fleet UNIBUS fleet included, other modes and homeworking are not

8. Upstream leased assets Leased buildings and vehicles No

Table 3: Inventory of sources included or excluded in scopes for BU GHG emissions reporting

Scope

2. Downstream emissions from activities that occur from sources not owned or controlled by the reporting organisation

9. Downstream transport and distribution UK and international Student travel, student accommodation

10. Processing of sold products

11. Use of sold products No

12. End of life treatment for sold products No

13. Downstream leased assets Leased buildings and vehicles, land-use No

14. Franchises No

15. Investments (can include pensions)

No

Emissions by Source for 2022/23

Scope 1 and Scope 2

Natural Gas

Data management:

The BU Sustainability Team (Energy Manager / Energy Officer / Sustainability and Energy Analyst) are responsible for recording the natural gas data. This is recorded in the SystemsLink Energy Manager software as part of the ISO50001 certified Environment and Energy Management System (EEMS).

Data sources:

1. Preferred data source: direct manual reads of all billing level meters as recorded by the BU Facilities Team and/ or the Sustainability team,

2. If the preferred data source is not available for all or part of the estate, Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) data either from BU’s AMR system or the utility supplier will be used,

3. If the AMR data is unreliable or incomplete for all or part of the estate, financial (billing) data may be used.

Calculation:

1. Meter readings (in m3 or ft3) are converted to kWh.

2. The kWh total for the year is converted to tCO2e using carbon factors from DEFRA (the kgCO2e factor for natural gas conversion from gross CV). The version of the DEFRA carbon factors to be used is the last version published before the start of the reporting year (June 2022).

3. The Natural Gas consumption from residential (student accommodation in the BU Student Village) and non-residential sources has been separated.

Results in 2022/23:

1,244 tCO2e, an increase from the baseline year (1,240 tCO2e).

Natural gas is the main heating fuel for the BU Estate. Factors that are external to the Energy Management System that have increased or decreased natural gas usage include the size of the BU estate, the Covid-19 pandemic and the weather. Controllable factors affected by BU’s operational decisions include the amount of onsite renewable/ low carbon generation (GSHPs and the biomass boiler) and the operation and monitoring of the BMS and AMR systems as part of the ISO50001 Energy Management System. This reporting year, there was a lower need for heating and ventilation compared to the last two years for Covid-19 safety.

LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas)

Data management:

The BU Sustainability Team (Energy Manager / Energy Officer / Sustainability and Energy Analyst) is responsible for recording the LPG data. This is recorded in the SystemsLink Energy Manager software as part of the ISO50001 certified Environment and Energy Management System (EEMS).

Data sources:

1. Preferred data source: direct manual reads of all billing level meters as recorded by the Chapel Gate Operations Manager and/ or the Sustainability team,

2. If the meter readings are unreliable or incomplete for all or part of the estate, financial (billing) data may be used.

Calculation:

1. Meter readings (in m3) or delivery amounts (in litres) are converted to kWh.

2. The kWh total for the year is converted to tCO2e using carbon factors from DEFRA. The version of the DEFRA carbon factors to be used is the last version published before the start of the reporting year (June 2022).

Results in 2022/23:

97.42 tCO2e, an increase from the baseline year (66.34 tCO2e)

LPG is the heating fuel for the Chapel Gate Sports ground because this is not connected to the natural gas network. Similar to natural gas, the weather and changes to operations due to Covid-19 have impacted the emissions amount over the past few years.

Biomass (non-CO2 only)

Data management:

The BU Sustainability Team (Energy Manager / Energy Officer / Sustainability and Energy Analyst) is responsible for recording the biomass data. This is recorded in the SystemsLink Energy Manager software as part of the ISO50001 certified Environment and Energy Management System (EEMS).

Data sources:

1. Preferred data source: AMR from the primary heat meter (generation) of the biomass boiler.

2. If the AMR is incomplete or unreliable, a meter read (taken quarterly or annually) can be used.

Data sources:

1. The AMR records the usage in kWh.

2. The kWh total for the year is converted to tCO2e (non-CO2 only) using carbon factors from DEFRA (the kgCO2e factor for woodchip biomass). The version of the DEFRA carbon factors to be used is the last version published before the start of the reporting year (June 2022). The non-CO2 factor is used due to the lifecycle of the woodchip; during the life of the trees that the woodchip is derived from, as much CO2 is removed from the atmosphere as is added from its combustion.

Results in 2022/23:

6.36 tCO2e, a decrease from the baseline year (7.95 tCO2e).

The biomass boiler in Poole House is responsible for low carbon generation of heat; it is carbon dioxide neutral as growing the trees for the woodchip removes as much CO2 as is emitted into the atmosphere from its combustion. However, there are other GHG gases released into the atmosphere during combustion, so it is not carbon dioxide equivalent neutral. This reporting year, the emissions remain similar to the past few years. There was a similar but slightly decreased need for the biomass boiler compared to the base year and 2019/20, due to weather and improved heating controls.

Fleet

Data management:

Vehicles directly owned by the university for transport

• Diesel, petrol and hybrid vehicles

a. The BU Sustainability Team (Travel and Transport Manager) are responsible for recording the mileage, fuel and cost data for the 4 diesel fleet vehicles and 1 petrol hybrid we have as reported by the users of the vehicles. This is recorded in an Excel worksheet and held in the university’s internal computer drives.

• Electric vehicles

a. The electricity used to charge the 8 fleet EVs are reported as part of the scope 2 grid electricity emissions (fleet vehicles are charged on site). There is a recommendation to separate this out in future reporting.

Grounds vehicles

The BU Sustainability Team fuel and cost data for the grounds vehicles as reported by the users of the vehicles. This is recorded in an Excel worksheet and held in the university’s internal computer drives

Data sources:

Vehicles directly owned by the university for transport

• Diesel, petrol and hybrid vehicles

1. Preferred data source: litres of petrol or diesel purchased.

2. If the preferred data source is not available, mileage data per vehicle is recorded.

Grounds vehicles

1. Litres of petrol or diesel purchased.

Calculation:

Vehicles directly owned by the university for transport

• Diesel and Petrol vehicles

1. Litres of fuel totalled for the year is converted to tCO2e using carbon factors from DEFRA (the kgCO2e factor for diesel or petrol fuel). The version of the DEFRA carbon factors to be used is the last version published before the start of the reporting year.

2. Alternatively, if mileage data is used, passenger vehicle emissions factors are used, based on the size of the vehicle (small, medium, larger or average based on engine size).

Grounds vehicles

1. Litres of fuel totalled for the year is converted to tCO2e using carbon factors from DEFRA (the kgCO2e factor for diesel or petrol fuel). The version of the DEFRA carbon factors to be used is the last version published before the start of the reporting year.

Results in 2022/23:

12.3 tCO2e, a decrease from the baseline year (19.5 tCO2e).

The amount of electric fleet vehicles has increased over the past few years, and this has been reflected in the decrease in emissions. We now have 62% electric fleet vehicles. During the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a decrease in non-Estates fleet usage, which has continued in recent years.

F gas (Fugitive emissions)

Data management:

The contractor for refrigeration maintenance provides an annual report that includes the type of refrigerant and amounts lost to leaks.

Data sources:

Leaks from refrigeration in kg and type of refrigerant as recorded by contractor.

Global Warming Potential information for refrigerants (from DEFRA).

Calculation:

• Leaks: total refrigerant lost in in kg

• Leak tests: total refrigerant added minus total refrigerant removed in kg

• Kilograms of each leak or leak test totalled for the year is converted to tCO2e using GWP from DEFRA. The version of the DEFRA carbon factors to be used is the last version published before the start of the reporting year.

Results in 2022/23:

35.9 tCO2e, a decrease from the baseline year (309 tCO2e).

The large base year amount was due to the result of 3 large leaks from air conditioning units occurring on Talbot Campus, which was an anomaly. Completeness of data has been improved this year, compared to the original CECAP report, which gave the original baseline amount of 135tCO2e. Data quality for this source can still be improved to align with the method in the UK government reporting guidelines.

Electricity

Data management:

The BU Sustainability Team (Energy Manager / Energy Officer / Sustainability and Energy Analyst) is responsible for recording the electricity data. This is recorded in the SystemsLink Energy Manager software as part of the ISO50001 certified Environment and Energy Management System (EEMS).

Data sources:

1. Preferred data source: direct manual reads of all billing level meters as recorded by the Facilities Team and/ or the Sustainability team,

2. If the meter readings are unreliable or incomplete for all or part of the estate, financial (billing) data may be used.

Calculation:

1. Meter readings are converted to kWh.

2. The kWh total for the year is converted to tCO2e using carbon factors from DEFRA (the kgCO2e conversion factor for electricity generation). The version of the DEFRA

carbon factors to be used is the last version published before the start of the reporting year.

3. The DEFRA factor used will be for the consumption amount only; the Transport and Distribution amount will be recorded in Scope 3

4. BU purchases REGO certified green electricity from renewable sources, however the GHG reporting is from a location based (based on the grid emissions), not market based (based the electricity purchased). This may be reviewed if future electricity purchases are made as part of a Power Purchase Agreement.

5. The electricity consumption from residential (student accommodation in the BU Student Village) and nonresidential sources has been separated.

Results in 2022/23:

1,639 tCO2e, a decrease from the baseline year (2,662 tCO2e)

There is a reduction in emissions from electricity from the base year, mostly due to reduction in DEFRA carbon factors, a reduction in activity on campus compared to before the Covid-19 pandemic and an increase in renewable generation on site from solar PVs. The increase in ventilation over the COVID-19 period impacted electricity less than natural gas, although there was an increase in usage in areas that use electrical heating (e.g. EBC) or are mechanically ventilated or use GSHPs.

In 2022/23 we continued to purchase electricity through REGO backed green tariffs. This means that 100% of our electricity comes from renewable sources. However, we report our grid electricity emissions using the emission factors from the national grid (location based-reporting).

Grid electricity (Residential) Grid electricity (Non-Residential)

Scope 3

Electricity transmission and distribution

Data management:

The BU Sustainability Team (Energy Manager / Energy Officer / Sustainability and Energy Analyst) is responsible for recording the electricity data. This is recorded in the SystemsLink Energy Manager software as part of the ISO50001 certified Environment and Energy Management System (EEMS).

Data sources:

The kWh total will be recorded as per the purchased electricity in Scope 2.

Calculation:

The kWh total for the year is converted to tCO2e using carbon factors from DEFRA (the kgCO2e conversion factor for electricity transmission and distribution). The version of the DEFRA carbon factors to be used is the last version published before the start of the reporting year.

Results in 2022/23:

150 tCO2e, a decrease from the baseline year (227 tCO2e). Similar to the consumption emissions for electricity in Scope 2, the reduction in emissions from transport and distribution are due to lower DEFRA carbon factors, increased on-site renewable generation and slightly lower activity on campus following the pandemic.

UNIBUS travel

Data sources:

1. Provided by UNIBUS (litres of fuel)

2. DEFRA carbon factors, published June 2022.

Results in 2022/23:

421.4 tCO2e, a decrease from the baseline year (391 tCO2e). Passenger numbers have recovered since the pandemic and bus travel is at an all time high. When full commuting data is included in scope 3, a more accurate and holistic accounting of staff and student commuting will be reported on.

Flights business travel

Data sources:

1. Provided by Select Travel (miles)

2. DEFRA carbon factors, published June 2022.

Results in 2022/23:

908 tCO2e, a decrease from the baseline year (1,426 tCO2e). The number of flights taken for business travel are still below the base year amounts but have increased postpandemic. This highlights the need to continue using online meetings and conferencing where possible.

Rail business travel

Data sources:

1. Provided by Select Travel (miles)

2. DEFRA carbon factors, published June 2022

Results in 2022/23:

16.4 tCO2e, a decrease from the baseline year (31.8 tCO2e). Rail travel has also increased post-COVID-19, but the number of journeys are still lower the baseline year.

Water and wastewater

Data sources:

1. Manual meter reads (m3), where manual reads are unavailable, financial data is used.

2. DEFRA carbon factors, published June 2022.

Results in 2022/23:

14.29 tCO2e, a decrease from the baseline year (49.35 tCO2e).

Water and wastewater emissions have decreased compared to the baseline amounts due to a reduction in DEFRA carbon factors (down around 60% since the base year) and also to the slightly lower activity on campus after to the pandemic.

Operational waste

Data sources:

1. Provided by waste contractor

2. DEFRA carbon factors, published June 2022.

Results in 2022/23:

6.18 tCO2e, a decrease from the baseline year (8.9 tCO2e).

Lower activity on campus due to the COVID-19 pandemic decreased the operational waste emissions, which are now increasing as campus activity is returning to pre-pandemic levels

Construction waste

Data sources:

1. Provided by construction contractor

2. DEFRA carbon factors, published June 2022.

Results in 2022/23:

5.12 tCO2e, a decrease from the baseline year (3.3 tCO2e).

Construction waste emissions are dependent on the amount and type of construction activity that takes place each year. Although there have been no new build projects since 2019/20, a number of capital development refurbishment / improvement projects have taken place.

Open Day travel

Data management:

The BU Sustainability Team (Sustainability Support Officer/ Travel & Transport Manager) is responsible for recording the commuting data for Open Days. This is recorded in an internal I-drive folder.

Data sources:

The data is collated by the UK Recruitment and Outreach team using information voluntarily provided by attendees for this purpose.

Calculation:

1. An algorithm is used to convert postcode data into distance travelled (km) using a linear estimate. The mode of transport (e.g. car, public transport) is then converted

to tCO2e using carbon factors from DEFRA (the kgCO2e conversion factor for Passenger Vehicles) using their average type figures. The version of the DEFRA carbon factors to be used is the last version published before the start of the reporting year.

2. Where mode of transport is not included, it is assumed the attendee travelled by car. Where the postcode is not included, an average emissions figure is assumed. Results in 2022/23:

232.5 tCO2e, a decrease from the baseline year (278.6 tCO2e).

The decrease compared to the base year is small and indicates that open day attendance is slightly lower than the levels the year before the pandemic.

Market based reporting

In order to show a comparison we have included the graph below to show our emissions if we were to use the market based reporting approach. BU invest in green tariffs which are REGO backed, therefore if we were to use market based reporting our emissions would be as below. We feel that our approach of using location based reporting is the right method, as we recognise there are challenges with REGOs and they can only have limited impact. We are exploring the use of Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) which have a clearer link to driving true additionality in the renewable energy sector. We are committed to our approach which focuses on reduction in overall energy consumed and addition of renewable energy sources on site.

Appendix 2: CECAP actions progress report

The CECAP maps out our route to cutting our emissions by half and aligning with the BU2025 plan which puts sustainability at the heart of the university’s strategic aims: it commits us to taking a leading position on our environmental impact and to support our students and staff to take a responsible approach to sustainable development.

In order to implement the CECAP, 94 actions have been identified across 15 themes. All actions have been assigned a facilitator and a person or team responsible, as well as a timeline: if the start date is yet to be reached, an action may be noted as ‘not started’. A dashboard and actions summary allows us to report progress, including to the CECAP Group and Sustainability Committee. A new action TR1.4 has been added in 2023 and action WS1.3 has been removed.

Governance

This theme recognises that to meaningfully and robustly embed our response to the climate and ecological crisis, our governance structures must support the response across all aspects of BU life.

Behaviour change

This theme is focused on mobilising the entire BU community to support our response to the crisis.

Education for sustainable development and research

This theme is focused on embedding the climate and ecological crisis and broader sustainability into our curricula and research.

Adaptation and resilience

Many of the recommendations which might have been included here have been embedded in other areas, although the issue of staff understanding the need to have their own response to climate and ecological challenges is highlighted by this theme.

Capital projects

This theme focuses on the impact of major building projects but also considers how other large capital investments can support the climate and ecological crisis response.

Existing buildings

This theme focuses on reducing the amount of energy it takes to run our buildings by improving the efficiency of their systems and making sure we use the buildings as efficiently as possible.

EB7.1

This theme focuses on the development of nature-based solutions to the ecological crisis

Renewables

This theme looks at how we can maximise our generation of renewable energy on-site (especially through the use of photovoltaics) to decarbonise the energy we use and provide resilience in our energy system.

Transport

This theme considers a range of ways to reduce the amount of business and commuting travel we do and to reduce the impact of essential travel using lower carbon transport modes and vehicles.

Waste

This theme focuses on both individual actions and supply

improve recycling rates.

Food

This theme focuses on how we can reduce our impact through food

IT

This theme focuses on reducing the energy demand of IT equipment and associated infrastructure and encouraging efficient use by looking at the provision of low energy IT equipment and infrastructure and adopting behaviour change techniques to reduce energy demand.

Procurement

This theme looks at how we can maximise our generation of renewable energy on-site (especially through the use of photovoltaics) to decarbonise the energy we use and provide resilience in our energy system.

This theme focuses on improving our ability to act effectively through better data, target setting, and taking steps to align our reporting with best practice over time.

RP1.5

Diversity and inclusion

This theme focuses on the need to include people from all backgrounds in the response to the climate and ecological crisis.