Emissions Management & Reporting

Every year, as part of the duty on public sector bodies to report their actions to tackle climate change we, alongside other universities, colleges, local authoirities, NHS trusts and other public bodies, submit a statutory annual report to the Scottish Government.

• Public Sector Climate Change Duty 2022/2023 Report
• Public Sector Climate Change Duty 2021/2022 Report
• Public Sector Climate Change Duty 2020/2021 Report
• Public Sector Climate Change Duty 2019/2020 Report
• Public Sector Climate Change Duty 2018/2019 Report
• Public Sector Climate Change Duty 2017/2018 Report
• Public Sector Climate Change Duty 2016/2017 Report

Details of the PBCCD reporting exercise and all public body reports are available via the Sustainable Scotland Network (SSN) reporting page .

Our reports as part of this exercise are also available via SSN online.

Prior to the net-zero commitment made in Aberdeen 2040, our previous Carbon Management Plan (CMP) had outlined a series of commitments and projects to reduce our carbon footprint. Details of the 2016-2021 CMP can be found here. It identified an array of projects to improve energy efficiency across campus and progress against the plan was positive, with reductions exceeding the 20% target within the first two years.

As with much of the sector, the simultaneous expansion of campuses, coupled with demands for energy intensive equipment are a constant challenge. Despite these challenges, incremental improvements help to keep emissions in check, improve energy efficiency, and reduce grid consumption. These include:

• the campus wide installation of PC energy management software;
• the installation of solar panels at Hillhead, our main student residence;
• constant monitoring and targeting to identify energy inefficiencies in buildings;
• projects such as our energy-efficient shared data centre that serves the region's tertiary education sector;
• building upgrades like window replacement, insulation programmes, and proximity sensors on lights;
• the rolling replacement of less energy efficient bulbs with LEDs;
• the completion of our award-winning Passivhaus Nursery building;
• recalibration of our Combined Heat and Power engine resulting in significant energy savings.

Yet for every successful initiative, demands for new equipment or new or refurbished buildings mean the work to embed energy efficiency in all that we do continues.

As part of the development of our Net Zero strategy, the need for a definitive institutional position on emissions offsetting has emerged as an area for further development. We intend to begin this discussion in AY 2024/25.

While there are established routes to decarbonising Scope 1 and 2 emissions, the indirect emissions we track under Scope 3 are harder to eliminate entirely. As such, we anticipate using various forms of offsetting, insetting, or other forms of sequestration to address these emissions.

Until we've developed an approved institutional approach to offsetting that addresses e.g. the type of emissions we wish to offset, the credibility of any schemes we use, and an agreed institutional process for tracking and managing offsets, it is important that colleagues note that we do not encourage colleagues to independently offset their emissions via publicly available schemes.

In the meantime, there are some narrow circumstances in which emissions will be offset. These are set out in the University's Expenses and Benefits Policy which highlights, for example, that certain grant funders (notably the Wellcome Trust) now require us to offset elements of research grants. This process is being overseen by colleagues in Estates & Facilities and Reseach & Innovation and individuals are not expected to undertake this offsetting independently.

Any offsetting that is approved will take place only through institutionally endorsed schemes that meet enhanced quality standards. Ad hoc schemes, such as those offered by airlines at the checkout stage of online booking, are not supported and should not be used. Costs incurred in purchasing such offsets will not be reimbursed as these offsets cannot be counted towards reducing our institutional emissions.

Staff wishing to discuss any aspect of offsetting should contact the Sustainability team in the first instance at sustainability@abdn.ac.uk