A WHOLE UNIVERSITY APPROACH TO ACHIEVE ENERGY TARGETS

With new targets and challenges for carbon and energy reduction both locally and nationally, Oxford Brookes University recently committed to increasing the intensity of its work in this area. Focusing on creating a resilient future for the University, our latest strategy and action plan brings Oxford Brookes in line with science based targets to support both the UK Government’s target of a 68% reduction in emissions by 2030, and the City of Oxford’s ambitions to be netzero by 2040. We’ve already cut carbon emissions by 35% since 2005, some 5,000 tonnes, however the University has a deep commitment to doing more - recently declaring a climate emergency to recognise the impact of climate change as one of the biggest challenges facing the world. Our new carbon reduction strategy continues to set the bar high. In the past year the University invested heavily in low carbon technologies. We doubled our installation of solar panels on campus and continue to optimise the energy performance of our campus buildings. We are reviewing all our indirect emissions, and driving the organisation towards net-zero by 2040 as part of our commitment to the Zero Carbon Oxford partnership. A core part of supporting this is through optimising the performance of our buildings, decarbonising heating and hot water and cooling systems, removing f-gases from our estate by 2030 and moving to ultra-low emission vehicles. We’re aiming for a 68% reduction of Scope 1 and 2 emissions from 2010 levels, by 2030. And since over 75% of our energy use is for space heating, hot water and lighting, we’re focusing our energy efficiency projects in those key areas. Every year, over £250,000 is invested into new carbon reduction projects such as LED lighting, controls and better heating controls.

We’re just about to get underway with a really exciting new development, installing a Geo-Exchange Heating and Cooling system on our Headington campus in Oxford that will deliver 1.2GW of low carbon heating per year. We’re the first UK University that will have this technology up and running - and we’re estimating it will reduce carbon emissions from the campus site by around 20%. It’s a huge step forward for the University. Fourteen boreholes, drilled to a depth of 220m, will be connected to heat pumps in our energy centre via a series of flowlines, trenched underground to the Headington Campus’ Energy Centre. The system displaces the use of fossil fuels and reduces energy consumption across both cooling and heating processes. Requiring significantly less space than traditional ground source heating it can be retrofitted to existing sites, such as the Energy Centre in the University’s John Henry Brookes Building.W

But as we learned from COP26, it’s not just about looking at emission reductions to our buildings and infrastructure, we are moving towards a whole institution approach - where research, learning, teaching, procurement, operations and investments are all delivered with a focus on carbon reduction and sustainability. A significant piece of work coming up is assessing Scope 3 emissions across the whole University based on a whole life approach.