Sustainability

We recognise there is a global climate emergency. As part of our core strategy for 2022-25, the theme ‘Be a force for good’ recognises sustainability as an organisational imperative.

Our commitments and aims

We’ve made the commitment to reach net zero across our operational emissions by 2040, ten years ahead of the national target. We plan to cut our emissions by over half by 2030, and be net zero across our remaining scope three emissions (net zero plus) by at least 2050.

Across the next year we aim to:

• Develop a sustainability programme to embed sustainability across the organisation to measure and report collective impact
• Begin to adopt an environmental management system to ISO14001 standard to provide the framework for monitoring, measuring and reporting across all environmental areas including emissions. ISO14064 will be used as the tool for verifying emission data to ensure robustness and assurance when publicly reporting progress towards net zero
• Establish an energy strategy to reduce emissions from our operations
• Deliver a sustainability training programme to ensure staff are well informed and understand the scope of sustainability and how activities can help us towards our net zero target
• Run a pilot project to measure the emissions of several of our products and services, including the Janet network
• Revise the estates management record to improve sector environment and emission reporting and user experience
• Continue to collaborate with the FE and HE sectors on projects to understand the environmental impact of IT/digital in both their operations and supply chain
• Embed sustainability into advisory activities, providing comprehensive guidance on incorporating sustainable practices into digital strategies
• Establish and maintain an environmental sustainability online community aimed at fostering collaboration, knowledge sharing and support among individuals and institutions in the FE and HE sector

View our carbon reduction plan 2022/23 and net zero roadmap 2021/22 (pdf).