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King's College London

We strive to create systemic change within and beyond King’s 

Driving forward the pace of research, education and action to enable societal transition to environmental sustainability is a whole-university strategic priority.

To achieve our ambitions, climate and sustainability action is embedded across King's, steered by a central team within the Vice Chancellor & President's Office, led by Professor Frans Berkhout, Assistant Principal (King's Climate & Sustainability). Professor Rachel Mills, Senior Vice President (Academic), and Steve Large, Senior Vice President (Operations), are the Senior Sponsors for King’s Climate & Sustainability.

This is supported by colleagues across our faculties and directorates, particularly our Staff Sustainability Champions and colleagues within the Directorate of Estates & Facilities who enable operational change.

King’s Climate & Sustainability team

President & Principal's Office

Directorate of Estates & Facilities

Research Management & Innovation Directorate 

The sustainability team in research at King's College London spearheads the integration of sustainable practices into the university's research activities, operations and infrastructure. The Infrastructure team leads on the delivery of an ambitious project to sustainably increase biobanking and cold storage capacity in support of the Health Schools.

All members of staff are full-time, except for the Programme Director (0.8 FTE), one Senior Climate and Sustainability Officer (0.4 FTE), and the KEATS Sustainability Module Assistant (0.2 FTE). 

In addition, several staff members across the university have responsibility for social or environmental sustainability, including:

Declan Mulkeen, Director of Research Strategy: Declan provides expertise on the climate and sustainability research landscape and leads the coordination of the King’s Climate & Sustainability Seed Fund. 

Service at King's: Service describes our commitment to society both through and beyond the traditional roles of education and research. The Service team support and implement projects that deliver on our commitments to social impact, including King's Sanctuary Programme and King's Volunteering. Find out more about the Service team and their work here.

London engagement: The London team is responsible for building relationships with partners across London and supporting King's faculties and directorates as they deliver on King's commitment to be a civic university at the heart of London. Find out more here.

Sustainability budget

King's Climate & Sustainability is supported with an allocated budget that covers both the implementation of the university-wide climate and sustainability strategy and the resourcing of the staff team. This financial budget sits within the Vice-Chancellor & President's Office. Further allocated financial budget sits within the Estates & Facilities department for Estates-based sustainability roles, alongside money allocated to invest in projects such as energy and carbon reduction, waste improvements and active travel facilities.

King’s has provided investment of nearly £6 million for the initial three-year transformation period of King’s Climate & Sustainability. Moreover, King's will continue to invest at least £1m per year into sustainability and carbon funded by grants, revolving Salix loans, and direct university funding. King’s has received £550K of Salix funding to be used for energy-saving projects across the university estate before 2025. 

Climate researchers at King's

Our world-leading climate researchers study across disciplines to meet the challenge we face at this critical time for our planet.

They work across the UK and globally to understand, inform and critique just and fair transitions to sustainability.

Learn about climate researchers at King's

King's Climate & Sustainability governance

King’s Climate & Sustainability is initially a three-year programme to accelerate change and create the foundations and momentum that will ensure delivery of the strategic goals:

  • Grow substantially the volume and quality of environment and sustainability research and our research impact by 2029; including development of distinctive and high-quality programmes and centres of excellence/institutes with visibility and critical mass
  • Provide environment, climate and sustainability education for all King’s students through the core curriculum (all King’s UG to have provision by 2026), strengthen extra-curricular education such as the KEATS Sustainability & Climate module, and expand research enhanced PGT, CPD and Exec Education
  • Continue making plans and investments to accelerate King’s progress towards its 2030 emissions targets (Scope 1, 2, 3 emissions reductions of 50%) and Net Zero target (demonstrable contributions by 2025 and 2030 to achieving King’s initial emissions targets), engaging our entire community to achieve these goals
  • Reposition and build King’s profile to include excellence and contributions to UK and global sustainability problem-solving in areas including policy, business, and civil society
  • Attract substantial philanthropic funding for new environment, climate and sustainability education, research, and impact
KCL Governance Structure

The King’s Climate & Sustainability Steering Group provides oversight, advocacy and accountability for the delivery of the three-year programme and planning for continued progress after the three years. The Group is chaired by the Senior Vice-President (Academic) and core membership includes (Senior) Vice Presidents, Executive Deans, Directors of various directorates, and general student and staff representatives. The Group meets three times per year.

The Steering Group is supported by four dedicated Working Groups to help the university deliver on its education, research, and net zero targets.

The Education Working Group has been established to shape and enable Education for Sustainable Development in all aspects of King’s education and to facilitate the development of high-quality new programmes. The Group meets at least once per term and is chaired by the Assistant Principal (King’s Climate & Sustainability). Core membership includes academic and professional services representatives from faculties, King’s Climate & Sustainability, the Students & Education Directorate, King’s Academy, King’s Online, KCLSU, and student representatives.

The Research and Innovation Working Group has been created to provide vision, expertise and creativity ensuring that King’s ambitions for rapid development of research and research income are achieved. The Group meets at least once per term and is chaired by the Assistant Principal (King’s Climate & Sustainability). Core membership includes Vice Deans (Research), academics representing all faculties, colleagues from the Research Management & Innovation Directorate and a PhD student representative.

The Net Zero Operations & Delivery Group has been established to help drive achievement of King’s net zero targets, as set out in the King’s Climate and Sustainability Action Plan. The Group meets at least twice per term. Core membership includes colleagues from Estates & Facilities, Real Estate Development, Finance, Procurement, Organisational Development, Strategic Communications & External Engagement, Strategy, Planning & Analytics, King’s Health Partners, and student/staff representatives.

The Carbon Offsetting Working Group was created in February 2024 to develop a reliable approach to carbon offsetting for King's.  The group will decide whether and how remaining emissions will be offset in 2030, or whether the equivalent of our offsetting cost should be invested in further decarbonisation projects on campus. Our approach will continue to be led by climate science, as well as by the ambition of our King’s community, and we will continue to do that which has the most significant impact on climate action. 

In addition, an External Advisory Board is being established to provide strategic perspective, challenge and guidance to King's Climate & Sustainability's leadership and committees. This Group will be pivotal in influencing King’s leadership and guiding it to navigate the rapidly changing external and international policy and funding landscape, and to connect with businesses, Government and third-sector organisations.

Our partnerships

King's is a member of, or partnered with, a number of organisations and networks working to promote sustainability. Examples of this include:

EAUC – The Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education: The EAUC exists to lead and empower the post-16 education sector to make sustainability 'just good business'. Students and staff can register for an account with the EAUC by selecting King's College London as their institution.

PLuS Alliance: The PLuS Alliance combines the strengths of three leading research universities on three continents – Arizona State University, King’s College London and UNSW Sydney – to solve global challenges and increase access to world-class higher education in high-need areas. In February 2023, King's launched an Environmental Humanities Network in collaboration with PLuS Alliance partners to address ‘planetary wellbeing'.

Circle. U: The mission of Circle U. is empowering our students and staff to mobilize knowledge for impact in order to make the world a better place.

Contact us

If you would like to learn more about climate and sustainability at King's, have a question or would like to collaborate on a project, please get in touch.

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