Green Gown Awards 2017 - Northumbria University - Highly Commended

From carbon ambitions to carbon success

After five years of increasing CO2 emissions due to a growing estate, a renewed approach to our carbon reduction ambitions has enabled us to halt this increase and achieve significant and impressive carbon savings of 28% from 2015, reducing emissions by 5,700 tonnes CO2 and saving £950,000 over the two years.

We invested in specialist resource, giving us the capability to develop a new, more comprehensive plan to deliver our carbon reduction ambitions. Through enhanced accountability and accurate, transparent monitoring, we have been able to ensure that projects deliver planned savings – gaining the trust and buy-in of senior stakeholders to invest further.

A huge range of projects have been implemented to date – from PV arrays to boiler replacement. Our approach also acknowledges that changes to buildings alone is not enough – we have worked to bring about individual behaviour and wider operational change – both contributing to our impressive savings.

Top 3 learnings:

1 Start and finish each project focusing on data to clearly demonstrate benefits realisation.

2 Challenge accepted norms and look for new ways of working.

3 Be transparent and liaise with stakeholders as early as possible.

CO2t savings over the life cycle of the project:

8,900 since 2015 to 2017. Estimated 

Videos

• From carbon ambitions to carbon success (click to hide)