Environmental and Energy Management

Impacts on the environment

We recognise the diverse and numerous impacts that university services and activities have on the environment. These are recorded in the ‌Aspects and Impacts Register v8 (Excel workbook: 163 KB).

Energy Management System (EnMS)

Our Energy Management System (EnMS) is certified to ISO 50001‌ (PDF: 340 KB).

The EnMS provides a framework which allows the University to monitor, measure and endeavour to reduce its overall energy consumption and carbon footprint. ISO 50001 requires us to set periodic objectives, targets and action plans, reflecting our continual improvement in energy performance.

Energy performance indicators have been identified following establishment of an energy baseline derived from the energy review.

Details of the Key Energy Performance Indicators (K-EnPIs) can be found in the EMS & EnMS Action Plan (Excel: 676 KB).

Energy Management Planning

As part of our EnMS, we undertake an annual energy review to plan for, and monitor against, our energy objectives and targets and formulate appropriate action plans. This energy review ranks all our UK buildings and sites according to total energy consumption (kWh) where those which fall within the top 90% are considered for energy saving opportunities.

Significant energy users

We've created Operational Control Procedures to control our significant energy uses. These include building systems such as heating, ventilation and Air Handing Units (AHUs), as well as factors such as User Engagement.

For more information, e-mail sustainable.campus@ncl.ac.uk

Procedures

There are a number of staff Operational Control Procedures and Work Instructions that control significant environmental aspects and energy uses. These procedures are integral parts of our EMS and EnMS.

For more information or to request a copy of one of the procedures, email sustainable.campus@ncl.ac.uk.

Legislation

There are many pieces of environmental legislation that the University needs to comply with, many of which are in place in order to reduce environmental harm relating to our business activities.

Failure to comply with legislation can have severe consequences such as fines, or imprisonment. All members of staff should be familiar with the legislation which affects them. If you have any queries relating to environmental legislation, please contact Sustainable Campus.

Details of applicable legislation, as well as other compliance obligations that we subscribe to are detailed in the Compliance Obligations Register (Web Version) (Excel workbook: 31 KB).

Student involvement

Students have played an important role in developing and improving our management systems. We have collaborated with students on related dissertation projects, some of which are listed below. You can find more information about how to get involved on our Student Action page.