Sustainable Imperial

Building on the foundations of Imperial’s first Sustainability Strategy 2021–26, we have been working on the Sustainable Imperial Strategy 2026–31, which will set out a cross-cutting programme focusing on achieving measurable positive impact on our campuses and on the world. This year, colleagues across the university have been working hard to develop the strategy, its aims and outputs. We are the joint second-ranked UK university in the QS Sustainability Rankings 2025. Delivering a more sustainable Imperial is a key part of how we are adding value to our community through our Science for Humanity strategy.

This year has been the first full year for both our sustainable travel and procurement policies. Our sustainable travel policy has helped us build a stronger approach to reducing our scope 3 emissions, with a 34% fall in emissions from business travel. The Sustainable Procurement Policy is now shaping major purchasing decisions through new 20% sustainability weightings and we are expanding our supplier data collection to help us better understand our emissions from procurement activity.

We have developed Imperial’s first comprehensive water strategy and reduction programme and are committed to achieving a 10% reduction in water use across Imperial managed buildings.

We have continued to make tangible progress towards our net zero goal for Imperial’s estate and below we set out the key developments for the year. Further information on our carbon emissions and how we are working to achieve our carbon net zero objectives can be found in our Sustainability Report for the 2024–25 financial year.

Carbon and energy

Work is progressing on our net zero programme, which has various distinct workstreams, including delivering energy efficiency initiatives and developing sources of low carbon heat and power.

Imperial has big ambitions to get to net zero for our campus heat and power by 2040 and be a sector leader in sustainability across the board. It’s great to see visible progress already through new solar at Silwood, alongside LEDs and better building controls at South Kensington. Harriet Wallace Director of Sustainability

We are committed to reducing energy consumption by over 2 million kWh per annum over the first two years and saving over 7,300 tonnes per annum of carbon dioxide, and we remain on track to achieve this. This will also free up electrical capacity for electrifying our heat supply as our decarbonisation programme progresses. To date we have delivered projects designed to improve how we manage the energy usage of our buildings, as well as low energy, LED projects saving 225,000 kWh per annum, with further projects designed to save approximately 1.8 million kWh per annum due to complete in the coming months.

Feasibility studies have been completed at our South Kensington and Hammersmith campuses so that we can understand the work and cost required to electrify heat and ultimately remove gas. They point to a phased shift from gas to full electrification through the installation of heat pumps. We have installed our first standalone solar photovoltaic (solar PV) projects at Silwood Park, our campus near Ascot focusing on Life Sciences. This project which installed 86 solar panels is projected to generate up to 32,500 kWh of power per annum. Our target is to meet over 10% of Silwood Park’s power needs from onsite solar PV.

We are reducing the impact of our High-Performance Computing servers through emerging technologies and partnerships. We are purchasing new water-cooled servers which have excellent power use efficiency. Water is used in a closed loop system to cool the servers which means water is recirculated and not wasted. 

Sustainable labs

The recent announcement of a new Sustainable Futures Lab at Imperial is helping us to further these aims with a new state-of-the-art research lab to accelerate the transition to a net zero future. Funding from the Wolfson Foundation will support Imperial’s new research facility dedicated to solving urgent challenges in climate change and sustainability.

LEAF is an environmental accreditation scheme designed to improve sustainability within higher education teaching and research. Participating laboratories are given environmental actions to carry out including across waste, energy, and procurement. A total of 559 of our labs received a LEAF award compared to 362 accredited last academic year. Of the accredited labs, 221 achieved bronze, 238 received silver and 100 labs achieved gold status. A total of 58% of Imperial labs are now accredited, up from 30% last year. These awards have contributed to savings of 576 tCO2e annually.

Partnerships

During the year we have started using the Imperial Zero Index, a framework to help us assess how our energy industry collaborators are performing in their commitment, strategy and operational efforts towards net zero. We have implemented an ‘Engagement for Change’ approach and pledged to only carry out research with fossil fuel companies where: that research is strongly aligned to the decarbonisation of their business; and only if the company demonstrates a credible strategic commitment to achieving net zero by 2050 for scopes 1 and 2 emissions. The ambition of the Index is to increase accountability and ensure academic engagements at Imperial and beyond are with partners who want to enact a genuine transition.

In March 2025, Imperial signed the South Kensington Supply Chain Charter, which Imperial was instrumental in developing with our partners. The charter aligns Imperial’s work with peer institutions in South Kensington, while strengthening the university’s sustainable procurement policy and supplier engagement strategy. This year we have also collaborated to produce a neighbourhood-level carbon baseline, including sharing Imperial’s detailed approach to reporting with those neighbours who have less experience so far with doing this; joined our neighbours in workshops exploring more complex decarbonisation issues such as residual emissions; and collaborated on a project to explore options for decarbonising heat and energy in the area.

Progress on reducing emissions

As expected, our overall scope 1 emissions have increased this year and our scope 2 emissions have decreased, following the completion of works to remove our legacy steam network at our South Kensington campus and leave us with a district heating network ready for decarbonisation. Last year, our Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant on the South Kensington Campus was temporarily shut down as part of this upgrade, which led to an increase in grid electricity (scope 2) and a decrease in natural gas usage (scope 1). There has been an increase in overall scope 1 and 2 emissions primarily due to the increased use of natural gas following the completion of this work, which has a higher emissions factor, though the combined scope 1 and 2 total was 1% lower than the 2022-23 value. We expect to see an overall benefit from increased CHP efficiency and heating efficiency from the removal of the steam network over the next few years.

Our scope 3 emissions have continued to increase and grew 6% during the year. Procurement activity accounts for 53% of scope 3 emissions, with student and staff travel accounting for 44%. The fall in emissions from business travel following the implementation of our sustainable travel policy has been offset by an increase in emissions from procurement activity. While the implementation of our sustainable procurement policy is shifting major contracts towards more sustainable suppliers, changes this year in Imperial’s pattern of spending and an increase in the UK government’s assessment of emissions per pound spent in key categories have increased our estimated scope 3 procurement emissions footprint. Where possible, we are working with our most significant suppliers to gather data on their actual emissions and use this to calculate our scope 3 emissions, as we consider this to be a more robust methodology.

Carbon Annexe 

Scope 1 (direct)

• Combustion of fuel in university facilities
• University vehicles

Imperial College London

Scope 2 (indirect)

• Purchased electricity for university use

Upstream activities

Scope 3 (indirect)

• Transport and distribution of goods
• Employee homeworking and commuting
• Water
• Business travel
• Waste
• Purchased goods and services
• Fuel and energy related
• Leased buildings and vehicles

Upstream activities

Scope 3 (indirect)

• Student accommodation
• Student commuting
• Investments
• Leased buildings and vehicles

Downstream activities

Overview of Imperial's scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions

Sustainability governance and climate adaptation risk

Imperial's governing and executive body, the Council, monitors how we are responding to climate-related risks, identified through the university’s risk management processes and supported by the Audit and Risk Committee.

Our Sustainability Strategy Committee, a sub-committee of the University Management Board (UMB) is focused on turning our sustainability goals into reality. This committee includes a representative from every faculty, as well as from relevant operational teams, and Students’ Union, trade union and education representatives. In addition, all Board papers and business cases must now routinely set out their sustainability implications.

Individual faculties also have their own sustainability champions making a difference across the university. 

In 2024–25 the committee focused its work on the following areas:

• Reviewing the Decarbonisation Programme for the university estate;
• Progressing Imperial's upcoming Energy Strategy;
• Monitoring the implementation of the Sustainable Business Travel Policy and Sustainable Procurement Strategy, Policy and Toolkit, one year after approving;
• Overseeing the development of the upcoming Sustainable Imperial strategy 2026–31;
• Establishing the Biodiversity Working Group and Carbon Pricing and Residual Emissions Working Group as new strands of targeted work;
• Monitoring the overall progress of the sustainability programme across its operations;
• Reviewing Imperial's detailed breakdown of its scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon emissions; and
• Overseeing Imperial's Climate Change Adaptation: Risk Register and Action Plan across the portfolio.

Climate adaptation risk

We have undertaken work during the year to better understand the university’s exposure to risks related to its ability to adapt to a changing climate. To do this we worked with experts to undertake scenario analysis to assess Imperial’s risk exposure as the climate changes. The climate projections are based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP). To consider the potential impacts of climate change on Imperial, the worstcase scenario (RCP8.5) has been adopted. This scenario assumes unmitigated growth in greenhouse gas emissions, leading to a global average temperature increase of approximately 2°C between 2046 and 2065. The modelling compares historical climate data (1981–2010 averages) with projected data for the period 2050–2069.

Using the above scenario, across the UK it is projected that the future climate will likely result in a greater chance of warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers. The table below summarises the expected changes in climate and the possible impact on the university.

Summary of expected changes for the UK modelled under the RCP8.5 scenario

We have established a number of adaptation risks, which we will monitor in the future. Below is a list of the risks identified where the likelihood of a particular risk materialising is deemed probable.

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