Sustainable Built Environment

UCL occupies over 200 buildings, which include laboratories, libraries, museums, theatres, workshops and residences. UCL is working to ensure that our buildings are net zero carbon in operation as part of our commitment to net zero by 2030.

Building and construction commitments听

In 2018/19 UCL's carbon emissions from heating, cooling, powering and lighting our buildings were 55,000 tonnes. We would have to plant 1 million trees to absorb that amount of carbon.*

What is UCL doing?听

UCL has a Sustainable Building Standard that details the minimum standards and targets for the delivery of a sustainable built environment 鈥� it applies to all our construction projects;
Our new build projects and major refurbishments must achieve a minimum of BREEAM Excellent;
UCL is also supporting transformation of the built environment on smaller projects using our in-house Mini-Ska tool;
UCL is working with our construction partners to help reduce single-use plastics on building sites, including producing a听a single-use plastics scorecard for construction sites with Mace;听
鲍颁尝'蝉听PEARL鈥痠s the first building that can claim to be net zero carbon in it's operation.听

> Learn about our impact on construction from our Annual Sustainability Report.听

*On average, one tree can consume approximately 60kg of CO2 from the atmosphere.听