PLAN25: Carbon reduction at Goldsmiths

Since declaring a climate emergency in August 2019, we have been working to reduce our carbon emissions and achieve our goal of reaching carbon neutral by 2025.

We have taken a range of measures to cut our carbon use, including divesting from fossil fuels, removing beef from campus menus and switching to a 100% renewable energy supplier.

We have also developed a detailed action plan to guide our journey to carbon neutrality.

This work forms part of the Green New Deal at Goldsmiths.

Our Action Plan

PLAN25 (PDF) is our action plan to help us become a certified carbon neutral organisation.

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It sets out the measures we must take to reduce our Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions and become certified carbon neutral by 2025.

We have also analysed our Scope 3 Carbon Emissions (PDF) – the emissions we contribute to indirectly in our supply chain – in order to radically reduce the carbon intensity of the College’s activities.

Our progress so far

We are analysing our carbon emissions each year in order to track our progress against the targets we have set ourselves.

We have produced our first emissions report, looking back at the College’s emissions during the 2019-20 academic year. This has shown that we reduced our combined Scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon emissions by 17%.

Read our Emissions report 2019-20 (PDF).

Our plans

We are taking a range of steps to reduce the College’s overall energy use and reduce our emissions.

Some of the key things we are working on include:

• Upgrading our Building Energy Management System to allow greater control of energy use on campus
• Updating our campus lighting to energy-efficient LED bulbs
• Using our Low carbon travel guidance (PDF) to support staff to choose low-carbon options when travelling on College business
• Working with our catering provider to reduce the carbon intensity of food and drink served on campus