Queen Mary is committed to supporting the Government’s ambition of reaching net zero by 2050, both by mitigating the net-negative impacts of our operations and accelerating the net-positive contributions we make through education, research and engagement. We continue to further develop our whole institutional long-term Sustainability Action Plan following the Strategy 2030 refresh process, and we will monitor our institutional activities against the UN SDGs.
Queen Mary is placed 31st in the 2023/24 People & Planet University League and 54th in the QS World University Rankings for Sustainability 2024. While this represents a significant improvement on previous rankings, we recognise the need to identify areas for continued improvement to address the climate emergency.
Queen Mary continues to actively support and engage locally with Tower Hamlets Council climate action initiatives. This includes being a partner in the Climate Partnership Network and subgroups, spanning biodiversity, innovation, leadership and research.
In 2022/23, Queen Mary achieved a 26 per cent carbon reduction against the 2018/19 baseline for scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions (emissions related to energy and fuel use in our directly managed buildings and campus vehicles). There has been a 34 per cent reduction in scope 2 (indirect emissions from electricity production) by 2022/23 against the 2018/19 baseline as shown in Table 1. This significant scope 2 reduction has been possible due to both ongoing investment into energy reduction projects that have been focused on our top ten energy consuming buildings and the decarbonisation of the grid.
Queen Mary also operates several halls of residence that offer accommodation on campus or a short distance away. Carbon emissions from residences account for around 12% to 15% of our total scopes 1 and 2 emissions (see table 2).
We have made good progress regarding carbon emissions from business travel, with a 40% reduction against the 2018/19 baseline.
We are currently developing a new sustainability action plan, which will define our reduction targets for the next three years. We are also looking to improve the Queen Mary Heat Decarbonisation Plan March 2022 [PDF 7,849KB] drafted in 2022 to make it more useful and specific to our buildings, as well as develop a broader carbon management plan.