New Voluntary Emissions Target for England

6th July 2018

BEIS have announced a voluntary 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020/21 across public and higher education sectors in England.
 
PLEASE NOTE THIS IS ONLY APPLICABLE TO UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES IN ENGLAND.
 
Full details of the notice is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/emissions-reduction-pledge-2020-emissions-reporting-in-public-and-higher-education-sectors.
 
For many higher education institutions this data will be collected through HESA. For those that do not submit data to HESA then BEIS will provide a reporting template though it is our anticipation that the Sustainability Leadership Scorecard should meet this need and be more efficient of members time. The deadline is 31 October 2019. However, if you wish to report then you need to register by 1 September 2018 and BEIS will issue a list of participating institutions. See page 13 for more details
 
The guidance states “for the purposes of a voluntary target we would encourage any higher education and further education institutions (i.e. sixth form colleges and universities) to support the voluntary target.”
 
The EAUC has been is close dialogue with BEIS Members on this development and members will remember the recent consultation on this (https://eauc.org.uk/consultations). EAUC welcomes the announcement of a voluntary greenhouse gas emission reduction target which expressly includes the Higher and further Education sector. The recent launch of the EAUC and AUDE Sustainability Leadership Scorecard (https://eauc.org.uk/sustainability_leadership_scorecard_qa1) is timely as a free sector mechanism to report on emission reduction progress and share best practice between members.  
 
This is a great opportunity for EAUC members to demonstrate their carbon reduction leadership and get better recognition for their energy reduction innovation and excellence. It is of course also an opportunity to take this to the next level and show the value of more ambitious targets and reporting accountability to students and wider society.
 
Iain Patton
CEO