The climate and biodiversity crisis are now a reality for the planet. Every nation, region, and community are facing multiple challenges as our planetary systems shift and national governments propose interventions on climate mitigation and adaptation. Recent scientific reports, such as the work of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, point to a stressed global environment, as a range of critical planetary boundaries, including greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity thresholds are exceeded. The cost of inaction on climate is high. In a 2022 paper, Oxford Economics found that 2.2°C of warming by 2050 has the potential to reduce global GDP levels by up to 20%, and warming of up to 5°C by 2100 would lead to ‘economic annihilation.’ Climate impacts disproportionately impact upon the poor, with the World Bank and World Economic Forum reporting that one-tenth of the world's greenhouse gases are emitted by 74 lowest income countries, but they will be most affected by the effects of climate change.
Our collective response, cooperation and good governance is critical for solving the crises of climate and biodiversity and advancing the social and economic development of communities and nations. Genuine partnerships between business, civil society, and government, at all scales, have the means to shift positive action for delivering sustainability supported by appropriate investment. The opportunities in the green economy are vast, as the world undergoes a transition to Net Zero. This includes building a more diverse energy system with rapid expansion into renewable energy generation, transport and storage supported by decarbonised homes, industries, transport, and food production. It means building the capacity of nations and regions to adapt to change, improving social resilience in the face of a shifting system. These challenges and opportunities require skilled graduates, with the education, training, and capacity to navigate, and to thrive, in a Net Zero world.
As a forward-looking educational institution, the University of Aberdeen is committed to providing global leadership on sustainability and providing our graduates with the skills and capacities to lead on Net Zero. Through our Aberdeen 2040 foundational purpose we are building awareness and embedding sustainability across our activities, estates, our educational programmes and our research. Under Aberdeen 2040 we have made 4 key commitments to advance sustainability:
- Encourage everyone within our community to work and live sustainably, recognising the importance of our time, energy, and resilience.
- Educate all our students and staff to be leaders in protecting the environment.
- Excel in research that addresses the climate emergency, enables energy transition and the preservation of biodiversity.
- Achieve net zero carbon emissions before 2040.
Our first commitment, encouraging everyone to work and live sustainably, focuses upon our workforce, staff, and students and how we conduct our work and our business. Under this commitment we have introduced a set of Guiding Principles of Sustainable Travel which will support embedding sustainable behaviours across the organisation. Under this commitment we have also launched a campus wide initiative called the Climate and Sustainability Assemblies. Our assemblies identify issues of strategic importance for the University relating to sustainable development and provide a mechanism for all staff (both academic and professional services) and students to be engaged in the decision-making process. Our first Assembly in March this year addressed the topic of a nature positive campus. The event saw over 50 staff and students gather to discuss and inform opportunities to enhance our campuses and improve our nature-positive credentials. Subsequent work has included habitat mapping of our grounds, changes in the management of some greenspaces to encourage biodiversity and plans to develop a new policy and action plan that will focus effort on restoring biodiversity on our campus. Our second event on the topic of green labs, encourages a campus-wide focus on the greening of our laboratory practices took and will support action to reduce laboratory waste, improve energy efficiency, and instil more sustainable approaches to the conduct of experiments and practices.
Our second commitment relates to educating all of our students to be leaders in protecting the environment. Critical to this commitment is that no matter what you are studying and no matter what your degree pathway is you are able to access and incorporate sustainability thinking into your programme. While we are at an early stage of considering how this applies to our degree structures, we have introduced new course offerings open to all students. For example, a recent course called the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Transforming our World is open to all students in 1st and 2nd year and builds understanding of the global challenges around delivering the SDGs. We are exploring new opportunities in how existing degree structures can build in sustainability and the provision of new bespoke sustainability degree pathways. At the postgraduate level we have innovative sustainability degrees such as the MSc in Energy Transition Systems and Technologies and the MSc in Sustainability Transitions on offer. Outside our formal degree structures, we are in advanced stages of developing a new set of graduate attributes that will see sustainability feature alongside global citizenship, and inclusivity as part of a cluster of skills that encourage our students to be active citizens.
Our third commitment, on research into the climate biodiversity emergency, is a defining research principle that underlies our 5 interdisciplinary research challenges. In particular, the challenge areas of energy transition and environment and biodiversity are galvanising researchers across our schools and at different career stages to identify novel solutions. The challenges include research from the Just Transition Lab on how workers and communities in Aberdeen face the energy transition and inform the global context for energy capitals in Net Zero transitions; researchers advancing sub-sea storage of hydrogen in the North Sea; rural attitudes to solar PV development in the UK, and protecting marine biodiversity by understanding intellectual property rights on the high seas. For our full suite of research across the challenge topics, visit our interdisciplinary challenge pages and explore the diversity of research in the University Sustainable Development Goals annual reports.
Under our last commitment, we are developing an ambitious Net Zero strategy that aims to achieve our target of net zero emissions by 2040. This covers a range of different emissions sources and targets including scope 1 and 2 emissions from energy use, business and student travel and procurement of goods and services. Under the strategy, we are planning for over 100 net-zero projects in areas such as building fabric, heating networks, energy efficiency and exploring the potential for renewable generation. Recently we developed a public interactive Sustainability Dashboard where you can explore our emissions data and progress as we implement our Net Zero plans and developments.
It’s both an exciting and challenging time with a lot of activity around achieving Net Zero in a challenging financial climate for UK Universities. You can keep up to date with us and our journey on our sustainability pages. It is important to note that every student, no matter what they are studying, will connect to sustainability in different ways. It may be the way you work in your profession or the industry or sector your engaged in, but the challenges affect us all. So, practice the solutions! With our forward looking and engaged research, our education provision building green skills and capacities and our commitment to be the most sustainable institution we can be, we look forward to working together and providing real solutions for our planet and our societies to be more sustainable, successful, and resilient.
Professor Tavis Potts
Dean for Sustainability
Professor in Environmental Policy & Governance.
School of Geosciences
