Having declared a climate emergency in July 2019 and adopted net zero carbon targets by 2030 in September 2020 we are now actively working with Midlands Net Zero Hub, Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership, Worcestershire County Council and Worcester City Council to develop decarbonisation strategies.
Our Heat Decarbonisation Plan sets out our desire to explore collaborative district heating opportunities and possible heat sources. A Citywide Heat network study is underway. Our energy and water strategy sets out our approach and we continue to invest in our buildings with costed energy action plans, some example projects for 2025/26 include improved data quality updating gas and electricity sub meters, data visualisation using Power BI, auto shut down AV screens, £57, 000 integration of energy sub-metering into the Building Management System, and continued investment in solar thermal PV and LED lighting.
We received £23,862 Heat Network Efficiency Scheme funding to deliver an optimisation study of our St John's campus heat network, which will feed into the city-wide heat network study. A further £16,000 grant is pulling all these studies together to recommend our best decarbonisation options in the current funding landscape. The Dukes building (see construction page) is heated by 3 75.8 kW air source heat pumps and achieved an EPC A rating.
An Energy Committee was established in 2022 to reflect the heightened priority of reducing energy consumption in the face of an energy price crisis. Chaired by the Pro Vice Chancellor Finance and Resources the Energy Committee provides strategic oversight of energy management at the University, with particular focus on identifying and resourcing opportunities to reduce energy consumption and to generate energy on-site. This reports directly to the University Executive Board.
View our Display Energy Certificates (DECs)
Energy Management System (ISO 50001)
The University has had an Energy Management System (EnMS) certified to ISO 50001 since 2020. The EnMS provides a framework for energy management at the University and ensures that actions are taken to reduce energy consumption, and that energy efficiency is considered during our procurement and design processes.
A surveillance audit of our EnMS took place in November 2024. Our next recertification audit will take place in November 2026.
Energy SMART Targets
Our current targets and some examples of how we are going to achieve them can be accessed through the sustainability targets document.
Digital Infrastructure
The University does not directly rent any data centre services, and for clarity, sustainability is included in all Digital Services procurements.
For all our on-site servers, we currently partner with Dell, which holds ISO 14001 and ISO 50001 and hold these accreditations.
Our sustainability website has been optimised to reduce energy use when accessing it, load faster, and improve the user experience. Read more about the project in our blog: How we reduced website data transfer
The current University website is hosted by Contensis, and sustainability and how we can reduce energy for searches were part of the tendering process. We are reviewing our web host, and this is a requirement again.
Digital infrastructure is included within the University Sustainability policy and strategy, and the Energy Committee has advised the University Executive on specific projects, including how to publicise the impacts of this work to students and staff, and how to invest in measures that make it easier to measure and reduce emissions. We have embedded policies into our printing - a carbon-neutral contract is in place for on-site, and off-site printing includes low carbon options, including SeaCourt, and we have longstanding arrangements for our redundant hardware being donated to local charities- see waste strategy and waste page.
Staff and students are receiving guidance on prompt engineering to minimise energy consumption from digital infrastructure through bookable sessions and drop-in sessions.
We have produced guidance on AI usage for staff and students that details the risks and recommended usage on the accountability for output and declaring where AI has been used to generate output; Intelligence risks from AI use; Unreliability of AI output; Privacy risks from AI use; Loss of work from AI agent use; Legal risks of using AI; Climate implications of AI These resources are not currently publicly available.
Staff have been consulted on optional search engines such as Ecosia. The current policy is that it's left to individuals' preferences.
