Edinburgh University - #Action
for the Climate
Dave Gorman
Director of Social Responsibility and Sustainability
“make a significant, sustainable and socially
responsible contribution to Scotland,
the UK and the world, promoting health,
economic growth and cultural wellbeing”
Strategic context
We exist to enable the University to
understand, explain and deliver on its
ambition to be a leading socially
responsible and sustainable University.
We are here
Who Are SRS?
Providing high quality advice, support and action on social
responsibility and sustainability
• We understand and explain what the important risks and
opportunities are
• We develop the University’s response to these challenges and
opportunities
• We deliver and facilitate programmes to catalyse action and
collaboration across campus
• We run dozens of events per year with c 5,000 attending - for
example in 2014 George Monbiot spoke to 550 people on ‘rewilding’
Our emissions 2007-14
Our emissions vs turnover
Climate strategy
The journey towards new climate change targets, funding and approaches.
2013: 1.5MWe
CHP engine for
Holyrood/Pleasance
Edinburgh:
“University
in the City”
… invested
£20+million in
Decentralised
Energy / CHP
2005: 1.6MWe
CHP engine
for George Sq
2003: 526kWe
CHP engine for
Pollock Halls
2004: 2.7MWe
CHP engine for
King’s Bldgs
Pollock Halls of Residence in 2003
Waste emissions 2007-14
Towards a circular economy?
How We Invest Matters…University of Edinburgh
endowment funds (2013)
Edinburgh Action for the Climate
• One of the Senior Vice-Principal’s priorities, 'Edinburgh Action for the
Climate' will harness the expertise of the University’s many academics
currently conducting ground-breaking research into areas such as
carbon capture and storage and renewable energy
• The University’s aim is to become a hub within the wider city for the
exchange of ideas and opinions about how best to tackle one of the
great global challenges
Transport and Travel Planning Policy
• In the Transport and Travel Planning Policy adopted in 2010, the
University committed to develop and implement innovative travel
plans, to reduce carbon emissions through the promotion of
active forms of travel
• The average individual travel carbon footprint per staff member
has significantly reduced by 35% with the carbon footprint per
student reduced by 28% between 2010 and 2013.
• The Staff and Student Travel Survey is undertaken every two
years to capture this information
• 88% of staff and students walk, cycle or use public transport
• The proportion of staff and students who use sustainable modes of travel continues to increase
• Overall across all sites and all students and staff – 11% cycle to the University each day
• Overall annual CO2e emissions from commuting – 9,457 tonnes (estimate)
Cycling
• A small fleet of electric pool bikes – our eCycle scheme
• A student bike hire scheme – UniCycles
• Roadshow series to engage with cyclists on safety and security
issues
• Free Bike Register
• Subsidised Gold Sold Secure D-locks
• Cycle to Work scheme
Our students and staff are being supported and encouraged by the
investments being made in the city's cycling infrastructure.
We provide:
• Secure and sheltered cycle parking
• General cycle parking
• Free Bike toolkits
• Free Dr Bike sessions (more than 30 per year)
• Free cycle training, and University staff qualified to deliver cycle
training & Bicycle User Groups
Student Bike Hire Scheme - Unicycles
• The University was selected by Cycling Scotland as one of its partner institutions helping to
develop the new Cycle Friendly Campus Award. We benefitted from a £50k grant which was used
to develop the University’s first ever student bike hire scheme
• The scheme is based at our main accommodation site – Pollock Halls. We chose Pollock as it is
home to 2,500 1st year students, new to the city whom we wanted to encourage from day 1 to think
of cycling as the obvious transportation choice. A fleet of 50 brand new Ridgeback Hybrids were
snapped up by the end of Fresher’s Week
Student Bike Hire Scheme - Unicycles
• These were hired out for £30 for semester 1 (plus £50 deposit).
• Working with the Wee Spoke Hub at SHRUB we also offered the students
the Cycling Scotland Essential Cycle Skills Course – a practical course
designed to provide students with the skills and confidence to cycle in
traffic
• We see this project as very much “learning by doing”, such that at this
stage we do not know what the future may hold
• We are currently undertaking consultation with our student hirers, and our
consultants from TRAC (Transform Scotland) will be providing us with their
evaluation of the project towards the end of this year
Student Bike Hire Scheme - Unicycles
Our observations of the scheme to date are:
• The majority are non-UK students – attracted to the scheme perhaps because they come from a
culture where cycling is the norm, but also because they are unable to bring a bike with them
• It attracts a mix of abilities from very inexperienced cyclists to confident cyclists – offering cycle
training is essential.
• We had no difficulty getting all of the bikes hired out – there is demand!
Future challenges:
• Providing for demand! With so many cyclists we need a lot of cycle parking
• We will aim to provide facilities within our new buildings & Safer routes. Students and staff who
don’t cycle tell us the main reason is they perceive cycling as dangerous because of road traffic
• During 2014-15 the University has continued to replace combustion engine vehicles in
the University fleet with electric and hybrid vehicles. This is serving to reduce carbon and
particulate emissions
• We now have 7 small electric vans and 5 petrol hybrid vehicles including the University
Car which is a Toyota Prius
• The electric vehicles are supported by charging points which have been implemented
using 100% government funding
Business travel emissions 2013-14
Questions?
[email protected]
www.ed.ac.uk/sustainability