The University of Southampton has developed a new Sustainability Strategy, launched on October 20th 2020, to sit alongside the University Travel Plan, Estates Strategy and Biodiversity Policy.
The Energy and Climate Change Division (ECCD) team contributed to the consulting phases and made comments on the approaches to be undertaken within the Strategy. Prof Bahaj is now Chair of the University Sustainability Implementation Group which has been set up to implement the Strategy and Dr Ben Anderson has also been seconded to the group.
The full strategy has now been published, setting out the six main goals:
Goal 1: Achieve net zero emissions for Scope 1 and Scope 2 by 2030.
Goal 2: Measure total emissions footprint and set targets for Scope 3 reductions.
Goal 3: Adopt a value-based approach to reduce emissions from business travel.
Goal 4: Ensure that sustainability is a part of every University education programme by 2025.
Goal 5: Make sustainability a cornerstone of UoS’ research and societal impact.
Goal 6: Implement a sustainable and ethical investment policy.
The Sustainability Strategy Group will be touring all of the faculties and services and hosting workshops to test and validate what is required to achieve each goal.
Professor AbuBakr Bahaj, head of ECCD commented, “This is an important step for the University to take a leading role on sustainability in the region; and also address climate targets”.
The Vice-Chancellor, Prof Mark Smith commented, “Sustainability is one of the major challenges confronting society. Over the summer there has been some great work and we are now launching our exciting new strategy for sustainability. This signals our real commitment as there is both a vision and actions outlined which we now need to follow through on“.
The ECCD team will be working on the implementation of the strategy including data gathering and analysis and the presentation of potential future pathways to achieve the set targets.