Our progress
We’ve been making progress to embed sustainability into everything we do at the University.
Off
We’re committed to ensuring our sustainability progress is publicly available and transparent. Below are the highlights of our progress during the last academic year.
Key achievements in the 2023/24 academic year
Actions
- Achieved a 42% reduction in carbon emissions from our 2018/19 baseline
- Completed The Wave, our new Social Sciences building, which followed our Sustainable Buildings Standard, and has been awarded Social Infrastructure Project of the Year at the British Construction Industry Awards 2024 and given Outstanding BREEAM Accreditation
- Planted an additional 314 trees, bringing the total number of trees on campus to around 10,400
- Launched our next Biodiversity Action Plan
- Increased active users of the Betterpoints app to almost 2,000 staff and students, recording 1.4 million active and sustainable travel journeys during the last academic year, over 950,000 of which replaced a car journey
- Procured 100% renewable energy, maintaining our £0 invested in fossil fuels and increased percentage of positive investments
- Appointed a new Sustainable Labs Manager to help improve the sustainability of our research and teaching operations across the University's labs
- Reduced our use of plastic milk bottles by 25,000, thanks to our partnership with Our Cow Molly
- Reduced single-use cup waste in our cafes through our Vytal reusable packaging scheme
- Maintained a 93.84% recycling rate for non-residential waste
- Achieved Gold Standard Accreditation in the Hedgehog Friendly Campus Scheme
- Began developing our next Sustainability Strategy for 2026-2030
Rankings and campaigns
- Ranked 24th in the world, 12th in Europe and 7th in the UK for sustainability in the QS World Rankings
- 58th in the world, from over 1,900 institutions, and 15th in the UK in the THE Impact Rankings, including 5th globally for action on Responsible Consumption and Production (SDG12)
- Signed the Concordat for the Environmental Sustainability of Research and Innovation Practice, becoming one of the first 20 universities in the country to commit to new sustainability standards
- Continued our commitment to the UN Race to Zero Campaign, an alliance dedicated to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 at the latest
Sustainability Progress Report 2023/24
If you would like to find out more about our sustainability-related progress and initiatives, you can view our Sustainability Progress Report 2023/24 which provides an update and overview of sustainability at Sheffield.
Sustainability Progress Report 2023/24 (PDF)
Track our progress
Our completed, ongoing and planned actions are tracked on our live sustainability action plan.
Achieving the SDGs
We’re working to have an impact against all of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).