King’s has just published its annual Environmental Sustainability Report, covering the 2017-18 academic year. The report tracks the university’s progress against its sustainability targets, and showcases key sustainability initiatives from across King’s. Sustainability is one of the enabling foundations of Vision 2029, and embedded in the Service Strategy as part of its definition of ‘Serve’.

Key highlights from this year’s report include our progress in reducing carbon emissions, significant improvements in how we recycle our waste, and the ever-growing Sustainability Champions programme.

The university has reduced its carbon emissions by 37% since 2005/06, despite significant growth in our estate, student and staff numbers, and income. We are on track to achieve our target of reducing our emissions by 43% by 2020, and are now looking towards our target to become net zero carbon by 2025. Improvements in our waste management across campuses mean that our recycling rates have risen from 39% to 56% in the last year. We are also making progress against our target to send zero operational waste to landfill, and this year have reduced waste sent to landfill to less than 0.1%. Our Sustainability Champions programme has grown to over 250 Sustainability Champions from various faculties and directorates, working in 46 teams to complete over 1,800 actions.

King’s is now working towards its 2018-19 targets, which include working towards our Biodiversity Action Plan, making sure refurbishment projects are assessed against sustainability frameworks, and switching the university’s Estates & Facilities vans to electric vehicles.

The Environmental Sustainability Report 2017-18 is available here. If you have any questions about the report and any of its contents, please contact the Sustainability Team at sustainability@kcl.ac.uk