University College London

UCL: Making change possible today

What does it mean to be a truly sustainable university? University College London (UCL) is bringing together world-leading sustainability minds to answer this question whilst walking the talk on our own campus. Our sector-leading commitments include net-zero carbon by 2030, providing sustainable education for our 43,800 students and creating 10,000m2 of biodiverse space by 2024. To deliver the scale and pace of change, we need systems change; we need action focused collaboration; and we need to drive teaching, learning and research which makes a sustainable future possible.

To date our achievements include: 28% reduction in CO2 over 10 years; the creation of 1,109m2 of biodiverse space with 3,000m2 in 2022/23; the launch of a sustainability bond to raise £300m for our transformation programme; a university-wide plant-based policy; and the creation of a laboratory programme used by 80 institutions worldwide.

Annual carbon savings achieved with the initiative:

• CO2t savings 2021/2022: 55,000 (these are cumulative savings over three years against our 2018/19 baseline). 
• CO2t savings 2022/2023: 15,000 (this is estimated and would take our cumulative savings to 70,000 against the 2018/19 baseline).    
• CO2t savings over the life cycle of the project: 286,000 (Estimated cumulative savings 2018/19 – 2030).

Top 3 Learnings

1. To deliver change, it requires transformative leadership across the Institution.
2. Our community are amazing innovators – we just need to articulate what the challenge to be solved is.
3. As a global university we can act as a catalyst for wider societal change.