Sustainability

Why sustainability?

Our modern culture, with its freedoms and opportunities, was built on fossil fuel combustion releasing an estimated 1,700,000,000,000,000 kilograms of CO₂ since the pre-industrial era. Atmospheric carbonisation heats the earth and poses threats to human health from floods, droughts, storms, fires, aquifer salination, food insecurity, disease vector transformation and climate-related migration and displacement. Many environmental problems, including loss of biodiversity, increase in microplastic residues and air pollution, arise from using natural resources unsustainably. 

As a community, we have a responsibility to minimise the adverse carbon and polluting impact of our everyday and professional activities, to safeguard the future of our beautiful planetary home and the millions of organisms with whom we share it. What could be more important? 

What we are doing

Through our research and campus initiatives and by integrating sustainable healthcare into the curriculum, we prioritise environmental practices to shape the future of healthcare responsibly. We are the first Medical School in the UK to be accredited as a Bronze Carbon Literate Educator by the UN-recognised Carbon Literacy Project which involves training staff and students to reduce their carbon footprints and to encourage others around them to do the same. Significant work has been done in improving lab sustainability and we have achieved Gold Certification with the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF) in 100% of our labs. We also contribute to projects to improve biodiversity and green spaces, particularly in our local area.