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Reflections on our sustainability journey

Headshot of Clare Casey
by
Clare Casey

We've published our sustainability report, describing the work we've done over the last year to minimise our impact on the natural environment.

A group of employees in a meeting discussing ideas with a whiteboard

Here at Jisc we’ve given ourselves a big challenge to reach net zero across our own operational emissions by 2040 – that’s ten years ahead of the national target. We’ve got a roadmap to guide us on the way and key milestones will include cutting our scope 1 and scope 2 emissions to less than half by 2030 (just five years away, now!).

We will then go further, aiming to reach net zero across remaining scope 3 emissions by 2050 at the latest.

In our annual sustainability report 2024 we have aligned our activities against several of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It highlights what we’re doing internally, as well as initiatives to help Jisc members and customers with their own environmental challenges.

I urge you to take a look at the report, which covers the discovery phase for our detailed sustainability impact and monitoring programme – and to look out for our new sustainability strategy, which we’ll publish early in 2025.

Highlights

Progress made internally in 2023-24 includes:

  • Re-baselining our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to include those from procurement so we now have a more accurate view of our current emissions
  • Reducing indirect emissions from our digital storage – we have lowered total storage by over 20TB
  • Completing an energy audit of our Bristol offices to identify next steps in the ongoing programme to cut our scope 1 and 2 emissions (ie emissions from gas and electricity in our Bristol offices)
  • Focusing on greener ways to travel – now 83% of business travel is by rail, and 59% of commutes use public transport or active travel (cycling, walking etc)
  • Generating over 14,000 kwh of solar energy
  • Recycling 1,315 pieces of IT kit and sending 1,255 pieces back into reuse

Our scope 1 and 2 emissions have reduced by 14.5% since August 2023. Now we’re working on measuring the supply chain emissions that make up over 90% of our total GHG emissions and when we have this clear picture we can begin work to reduce these. We’ve also expanded our data collection to include scope 1 emissions from refrigerant gases and scope 3 emissions from all our leased data centres. We believe that this more accurate reporting is the main reason for an apparent increase in our scope 3 emissions compared with our 2022-23 report.

Alongside the statistics, the report has news on several activities that align with the SDGs and that are having a positive impact on day-to-day life in our communities. For example, it discusses our support for charity partner Young Lives vs Cancer, and the mental health and wellbeing support we’ve put in place for Jisc staff. It describes our work on diversity and inclusion within our organisation, and how we are making our customer events more sustainable by providing plant-based refreshments and avoiding plastics waste.

Support for our community

While we have been driving improvements in our own operations, we have implemented more support in the FE and HE sectors. For example, we have:

  • Launched a new monthly digital sustainability newsletter for FE and HE organisations that has an average of 835 readers each month
  • Created a new FE and skills digital sustainability community to share ideas and good practice – it currently has 78 members from 59 organisations
  • Published a report on digital sustainability in tertiary education, exploring challenges, opportunities and best practice in FE and HE and setting out our sustainability roadmap
  • Introduced a new digital transformation consultancy service offering frameworks, tools and advice
  • Established a sustainability special interest group within GÉANT to collaborate internationally with other NRENs on sustainability

Next steps

So what does 2025 hold? Big pieces of work include developing our own environmental management system and creating a methodology to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions and sustainability impacts from our key products and services. And we will be extending our support for members’ own sustainability journeys. They include:

  • A new programme of digital sustainability workshops
  • Publishing a digital sustainability e-learning model
  • Showcasing best practice sustainability initiatives alongside industry, FE and HE partners

Further information

About the author

Headshot of Clare Casey
Clare Casey
Head of environmental sustainability, Jisc