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Making our research and innovation more environmentally sustainable
By: Ellie Evans
Last updated: Tuesday, 17 December 2024
The University of Sussex is the latest institution to sign up to an agreement to improve the way we conduct research and innovation – as just one of the ways we are making our research more environmentally sustainable.
The Wellcome Trust’s Concordat for the Environmental Sustainability of Research and Innovation Practice highlights the powerful role that research and innovation (R&I) can play to both understand the impact climate change and biodiversity loss is having on our planet, and discover how to solve these challenges. It also serves as a catalyst to take action to address our energy use, products and materials and shift to more sustainable practices.
“This concordat represents a shared ambition for the UK to continue delivering cutting-edge research, but in a more environmentally responsible and sustainable way,” says Keith Jones, Pro-Vice-Chancellor Research & Innovation.
“By signing this agreement, we recognise the need to change how we conduct research and innovation as well as promote wider solutions. It means we agree to take shared action now, and in the future, to reduce and eliminate our own negative environmental impacts and emissions.
“Within the UK we will only achieve our net zero targets and biodiversity goals if the R&I sector continues to offer intelligence, insight, and innovative solutions to shift our society to an environmentally sustainable way of living.”
What will this agreement do?
The concordat calls for the following steps to be taken across the sector by 2050:
- Institutions to demonstrate leadership on environmental sustainability at all levels
- R&I to be carried out in an environmentally sustainable way, with signatories being transparent about environmental impacts
- New ways of working to use a climate-conscious, low-carbon approach
- Net zero (or near-net zero) carbon infrastructure to be used to deliver R&I (with scientifically robust carbon sequestration where absolute zero carbon is not possible)
- Robust decisions to be made in resourcing projects and data which are based on circular economy principles and life-cycle costing
- A shift to greater use of reusable products, innovative developments in single-use materials and the use of fossil fuel-based products reduced to only those areas where there is no viable alternative.
Improving the sustainability and efficiency of laboratories
We are already among the 85 institutions making sure our labs adhere to the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF), an independent standard created by UCL which enables science laboratories to improve their sustainability and efficiency.
Five of our labs (including the Biosciences and Chemistry Life Sciences teaching labs which are made up of a number of separate labs) have gained bronze LEAF accreditations and are working towards silver, with a number of others getting ready to reach bronze.
How to find out more and make changes to the way we work
You can read the full Concordat for the Environmental Sustainability of Research and Innovation Practice, as well as Vice Chancellor Professor Sasha Roseneil’s letter of commitment to its priorities.
If you would like to explore LEAF accreditations for your lab, please contact the Sustainability Team by emailing sustainable@sussex.ac.uk
This work supports the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure) and SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production). You can read more about our work on the SDGs here.