Excellent carbon accounting

We will work with our relevant energy management service partners – currently Sussex Estates and Facilities (SEF) – to put in place robust carbon-accounting practices based on the Green House Gas Protocol produced by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. This will allow us to track our progress towards achieving our net zero target.

We will ask SEF (Sussex Estates and Facilities) – in an improved energy management agreement – to provide an annual report on our carbon footprint to the Sustainability Committee, chaired by our Vice-Chancellor every February. We will then use these data to agree an annual carbon-reduction target for each academic year from August 2022 onwards. Achievement of this annual carbon-reduction target will be a key performance indicator that the Sustainability Team reports to the University Council (the highest governing body at the University) each year for scrutiny, challenge and approval.

We recognise that the quality of our carbon accounting will only be as good as the quality of the data that we are collecting to inform it. So, we will review our current carbon footprint data and produce an improvement plan by December 2021, which we will implement by December 2022. This means we will review the data quality in relation to our top 10 sources of carbon emissions and put in place an improvement plan for each area. For example, utilising industry best-practice methodologies to calculate indicative emissions from our procurement activity and investments.

In order to ensure that our carbon-accounting policies and procedures are guided by best practice we will also look to apply to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) Net Zero Carbon Standard accreditation by August 2022 with an aim to have received accreditation by August 2023. This standard sets out requirements for quantification, reduction and compensation of greenhouse gas emissions for organisations, products and events.