A Dr Bike mechanic checks a student’s bicycle.
A Dr Bike mechanic checks a student’s bicycle.

Aim

To promote climate conscious travel among staff and students in order to reduce the environmental impact of College-related travel.

We will…

  • develop a sustainable travel policy by 2022;
  • provide staff and students with innovative virtual and video conferencing tools to advance collaboration and increase conference participation, while reducing the need to travel;
  • develop appropriate mechanisms to encourage less air travel (such as a carbon tax or frequent flyer levy) and mitigate some of the impact of necessary air travel (for example by carbon offsetting), taking care that reductions in aviation emissions are distributed fairly across the Imperial community;
  • provide incentives for low-carbon travel, for example participating in the government’s Cycle to Work Scheme and permitting slow travel days for greener modes of transport;
  • improve data collection on staff and student travel, particularly by air, to benchmark and develop accurate targets for the future;
  • promote the use of public transport and active travel to and from campuses, including improving cycle facilities, and engage with local councils to identify opportunities for improvements to active transport options between and around our campuses;
  • replace existing College petrol or diesel vehicles with electric or hydrogen alternatives where possible for use on campus and between campuses;
  • introduce solutions to enable College members to move from being owners to being users of the means of transport;
  • reduce the number of vehicles on campus as far as possible and increase electric vehicle charging points for staff and visitors.

Measures of progress

  • Reduction in carbon emissions from air travel by 25% by 2026 against the baseline year 2017–18 (tonnes of CO2e per person per year);
  • Increase in sustainable modes of commuting both to and from College and between campuses (methods for assessing per capita carbon emissions from air travel and travel surveys are being investigated by the College to enable more detailed KPIs to be developed).