Sustainability

At BNU, we take our sustainability responsibilities seriously and are committed to achieving a sustainable future. Our approach to sustainability goes beyond the traditional focus on environmental sustainability: we aspire to improve environmental, social, and economic sustainability both across the University, and the wider community.

The University’s upcoming Sustainability Strategy emphasises the need to take a holistic approach to our social, environmental, and economic impacts. Our efforts will focus on improving the learning and working experience for our students, our staff, and our partners. It is important to us that we not only reduce our carbon emissions, but we make our buildings and campuses wonderful places to live, work and study.

As an institution, we have an enormous capacity to encourage others to improve. We will lead by example through the development of systematic and thoughtful goals and targets. Our direct social and environmental impacts are only a small part of our total impacts. In recognition of this, we will work with our partners and communities to promote social value, environmental good practice and the progress against the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

We are proud to be one of the founding members of the Nature Positive Universities Pledge. Within the next year, we anticipate developing our biodiversity baseline and developing our initial plans to improve our outdoor spaces.

It is increasingly clear just how important it is for all our staff and students to be familiar with the principles of sustainable development. We have the opportunity to help give our staff and students the tools to make the world a better place and the confidence to know that together our BNU community can achieve great things.

Our sustainability principles are to:

Continually improve the sustainability of our sites.

Enable, empower and support the BNU community to tackle their sustainability impacts.

Provide the education, advancement dissemination and application of sustainable development.

Maximise the impact of BNU's environmental sustainability activities at local, regional, national and international levels through collaboration, partnership and communications.

Become a leader across the HE sectors in terms of environmental sustainability.

Projects we have undertaken to reduce BNU’s carbon footprint:

Net zero carbon emissions

BNU is one of 1,050 universities and colleges from 68 countries that have signed up to the global Race to Zero pledge to half their emissions by 2030 and reach net-zero as soon as possible, impacting over 10 million students worldwide. The initiative is led by EAUC (The Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education) and Second Nature with support from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Progress towards achieving carbon neutrality is attributed to enhanced campuses, energy savings, responsible waste management, upcycling, and environmental research that has local and international benefits.

We commissioned a thorough property condition assessment of all our sites. This information is being used to develop our Decarbonisation Plan which is due for release in 2023.

Though the carbon released by our buildings is a substantial part of our overall carbon footprint, it is by no means all of it. We have begun the process of measuring our wider Scope 3 emissions which produced by our indirect actions, such as our supply and value chains.

Decarbonising our operations

We are developing our plans to decarbonise our operations and hit net zero emissions by 2030. Our decarbonisation strategy is still in development, but it follows these key principles:

• Upgrade our buildings to make them more comfortable and more energy efficient. • Invest in low-carbon heating systems and heat recovery systems.

• Change to a fully traceable renewable energy contract when our current contract expires.

Nature Positive Pledge

In recognition of the importance of green space and biodiversity, we have commissioned the development of a new garden on our High Wycombe campus to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee. This garden will provide staff, students and local residents with a place to reflect and enjoy nature on our High Wycombe campus.

In addition, we launched a review of green spaces across our Wycombe campus, with the aspiration to find ways to improve the student and staff experience through the improvement of our outdoor facilities.

We are proud to become founding members of the Nature Positive Universities Pledge. As part of this pledge, we have committed to reducing our ecological impact and improving biodiversity across the globe.

Our procurement and sustainability teams are developing a sustainable procurement strategy through which we will ensure that our entire supply chain shares our values. Wherever possible, we will procure goods and services from social enterprises.

We are working with an employeeowned architectural practice to develop a green estates masterplan. Our masterplan will help us to identify and develop ways to make our High Wycombe site a more nature-focused location with places for staff and students to relax and socialise outdoors. It is important that our partners share our values and motivations. We are proud to be working with a certified B-Corp that shares our attitudes to sustainability and the public good. A B-Corp is independently certified as a business that meets a high standard of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability. Over time, we aspire to only work with organisations who share our motivations and values. Our New Usage scheme, which re-uses and recycles items left by students in our halls of residence at the end of year, continues to thrive thanks to the hard work of the Chaplaincy and Students’ Union. We are proud that the scheme is a finalist for a Green Gowns Award, and we look forward to the awards ceremony on 8 November.

Sustainable Operations

• The solar panels fitted across three of our buildings continue to generate free clean energy. Last year, our panels generated 126,000 kWh of energy, enough to power 44 households and save 25 tonnes of CO2 each year. • Our Estates and Facilities teams have been using electric vehicles for some years now, and we will continue to support the use of electric vehicles by our staff and are exploring opportunities to reduce our transport emissions. • Our decarbonisation plans prioritise the reduction of energy demand through making improvements to insulation. By improving the insulation of our buildings, we can improve employee comfort and reduce our carbon footprint. • We are working to reduce our carbon emissions further still by migrating from gas to low & zero carbon heating systems. • We have reviewed and updated our minimum energy efficiency requirements for new heating, cooling and lighting systems. • We have increased the level of planting across our High Wycombe campus, prioritising the use of plants that attract bees and butterflies, and those that stimulate the senses.

Responsible waste management

We manage and dispose of our waste responsibly.

• Recycling facilities are available for paper, card, plastics, metal, electrical equipment, batteries and mattresses. • We are developing new and stretching targets for waste management. Our efforts will focus on the reduction of waste and increasing recycling. • We are working on food recycling at our campuses and halls of residence, and coffee cup recycling for our cafes. Our discount for using reusable cups will be reinstated following a temporary COVID pause. • Wherever possible, we procure used furniture that is in good condition to prevent good quality materials from going to landfill. • We work in partnership with a local charity wood merchant to recycle products as outdoor furniture across our estate.

• Waste that cannot be recycled is sent to a waste-to-energy plant where possible, and to landfill only as a last resort. • We have removed more than 5,000 plastic straws from our bars and cafes.