Environmental
performance

Investments

The University for the Creative Arts is committed to safeguarding a liveable climate for all. It declares that it has no direct investments in companies involved in the carbon energy industry, including those involved in extracting fossil fuels, and commits to ensuring that adverse climate impact will be avoided in any future corporate investments it may make.

We have students studying with us from across the world, many of whom come from communities who are already feeling the effects of climate change. We want to help protect the environment for all our students and their communities – past, current and future.

We understand that many UK Higher Education Institutions have similarly committed to divest or avoid such investments in some way and we hope that many more of our fellow educational institutions will join us and add their voice to this movement.

Carbon Management

UCA’s third Carbon Management Plan (CMP3) was approved in 2015 and set out plans to achieve a targeted 37% reduction in absolute carbon emissions from energy consumption by 2020 compared to 2005 levels.

UCA met the CMP3 2020 target three years early at the end of 2017.

Throughout the Covid-19 affected years of 2020 and 2021 continuous improvements in energy efficiency, investments in onsite energy generation from solar photovoltaic panels and the procurement of 20% of our baseload electricity from UK wind power have led to significant annual reductions in carbon emissions.

By 2023 UCA’s annual absolute carbon emissions from energy (market-based scopes 1, 2 and 3; electricity transmission and distribution) had reduced to 2,676 tonnes (Non-residential was 1778 tonnes and Residential 898 tonnes); an overall 56% decrease compared to 2005.

Carbon intensity (the weight of carbon emissions per square metre of buildings internal area) has similarly reduced significantly from 75 kgCO2e/m2 in 2008/09 to 31 kgCO2e/m2 in 2018/19 and 29 kgCO2e/m2 in 2022/23.

Energy

A renewable energy source (solar photovoltaic panels) was commissioned at the Epsom campus in 2012 and in Farnham solar PV panels were commissioned in 2017, 2018 and 2019 and now generate almost 50 MWh of electricity each year. A Combined Heat and Power system was installed in Farnham’s new student residences development, which opened in September 2021.

In October 2019, UCA joined nineteen other UK universities in signing an aggregated power purchase agreement (PPA) to purchase 20% of its electricity from zero-carbon rated UK onshore wind power for the next ten years. The PPA was the first of its kind in the UK and has significantly reduced UCA carbon emissions from electricity consumption as well as helping to support the growth of renewables in the UK’s generation mix. The University continues to explore opportunities for increasing our procurement of further zero carbon electricity via new PPAs.

In November 2021 UCA declared a target to reach Net Zero carbon for energy consumption across all campuses by 2030. In 2023 the university was successful in securing £2.3 million in grant funding (Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme 3b) to part-fund works to decarbonise heating at its Surrey campuses in Epsom and Farnham. Work started in summer 2023 at both campuses to replace gas powered heating with Air Source Heat Pumps. The programme at each site will also see the installation of onsite solar power generation and battery storage and improvements to building fabric. The works will complete at both campuses in 2025 at a cost of £6.5 million. It is estimated that the improvements will cut carbon emissions from energy at each site by up to 90%.

Water & waste

In 2022/23 UCA consumed 59,000 cubic metres of water, a 1,000m3 increase compared to the previous year.

Waste recycling schemes operate on all campuses and directly-managed student residences, and food waste composting and collection services operate at UCA Farnham and UCA Epsom. In addition, surplus used office furniture is donated to charities and other causes local to each campus.

The total weight of waste collected in 2023 was 369 tonnes (269 tonnes general waste and 101 tonnes of recyclables), a 2% decrease in total waste collected compared to the previous year. In 2023, waste/unwanted items left by students at halls of residence in the summer was segregated and passed on to charities for redistribution to refugee families in need.

Transport

To encourage staff and students to travel to and from campus more sustainably, UCA has implemented a range of initiatives, including:

  • A Sustainable Travel Plan has been developed for Farnham campus and plans are in development for Canterbury, Epsom and Rochester
  • In November 2018 UCA Liftshare (https://liftshare.com/uk/community/uca), car sharing community was launched to staff and students at all campuses. UCA Liftshare allows staff and students to arrange car sharing journeys and record when these take place. By October 2021, over 200 staff and students had registered as users on the UCA Liftshare platform. Each Liftshare team of two or more people is estimated to be saving an average of 3,400 miles in car journeys, and 700kg of carbon emissions each year
  • Since May 2018 in partnership with Stagecoach bus services Farnham staff have been able to access discounts on bus fares and apply for free one–month trial bus tickets to see if commuting by bus works for them;
  • Since September 2018, Farnham and Canterbury students have been able to purchase bus season tickets at a discount of over 20% off the normal price;
  • In summer 2020, a new staff Cycle to Work scheme was launched, which gives staff access to purchase bicycles via salary sacrifice and save on tax. The scheme is open to purchases up to £2,000.
  • In November 2018, new improved and covered bicycle shelters for 48 bicycles were installed in Farnham.
  • In October 2020, 25 secure bike lockers were installed across UCA’s campuses and in 2021
  • In Autumn 2021 an additional 126 bicycle parking spaces were added at Farnham bringing the total spaces to 194 spaces.
  • A salary sacrifice scheme for the lease of new electric vehicles will be launched to staff in 2022.
  • In 2018 Electric vehicle (EV) chargers were installed at each campus, to develop a network for staff inter campus travel. Twenty staff members are registered to use the chargers. In anticipation of growth in EV ownership a total of 8 EV chargers were installed at Farnham campus in 2021 and a further 6 chargers were installed at Canterbury and Epsom in 2023.
  • In 2022 we launched of our new staff salary sacrifice scheme to lease electric vehicles. The scheme has proved very popular in its first six months and is expected to significantly reduce emissions from staff commuting.

Useful documents

Please click on links below to view the documents.