Sustainability

In 2020, the College formed a Sustainability Working Group to generate and discuss policies that will lead the college to net zero carbon emissions. The group contains representatives from the whole college community including students, support staff, and senior management. It is chaired by our College Climate Change Champion, the freshwater and marine ecologist Associate Professor Michelle Jackson. In addition to driving our innovative travel policy, the Sustainability Working Group is also responsible for securing joint funding within College for the appointment of a Sustainability Officer within College to lead the implementation and advocacy of our Sustainability Plan. 

We continue to work in partnership with the University and the Conference of Colleges to reduce our carbon emissions. You can read the University Sustainability Working Group’s proposed strategy here. 

One of the areas where academic communities have historically made a significant contribution to pollution is by flying to conferences and other academic engagements. Following a proposal conceived by one of our own students, Somerville College is the first educational establishment in the UK to authorise a new scheme that will incentivise our students and academic staff to choose lower carbon travel solutions such as rail over flying when college travel funding is available. Academics, staff and students at Somerville College in receipt of college funding for travel will now use a Gold Standard compliant offsetting scheme when flying, with the costs reimbursed, while students receiving discretionary travel awards can receive a higher sum for selecting low-carbon transport solutions.

We fully divested from our holdings in fossil fuel companies in March 2021. Furthermore, the College reinvested the proceeds from selling its fossil fuel holdings in the purchase of The Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG), an investment company whose purpose is to generate sustainable returns from a diversified portfolio of renewables infrastructure contributing towards a zero-carbon future.

Our Head Gardener has devised a plan to increase biodiversity in the gardens over the next 3 years by introducing a wider variety of species of plants to provide habitats and mitigate the effects of climate change, along with the provision of wilder spaces to accommodate different species. She has recently invited members of the college community to use the iNaturalist app to help map biodiversity on the site, and collaborated with the Sustainability Working Group in undertaking a full biodiversity audit in June 2021.

We have revised and improved our vegetarian and vegan menu, and serve ruminant meat only once a week in hall. Ingredients are sourced locally whenever possible, and fish is now purchased from Marine Stewardship Council-certified sustainable suppliers. Following kitchen refurbishments in 2020-21, our kitchens will use induction cookers to prepare food more energy efficiently and without the need for fossil fuels.

Somerville is contributing to the fight against climate change by supporting climate change research. The Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development is undertaking cutting-edge work on cooling technologies, reforestation and water justice that will empower its scholars to tackle the climate crisis in the global South. Somerville is also fortunate to have many Fellows and early-career academics working on globally relevant solutions to the climate crisis. These include Professor Michelle Jackson, whose work on individual-to-ecosystem responses to environmental change is providing insights on how warming and other stressors can cascade through food webs, and Professor Renier van der Hoorn, who was awarded a €2.5m grant by the European Research Council to continue his work on developing new crop protection strategies by unlocking extracellular immunity. They are joined by Professor Noa Zilberman, a Google Research Scholar 2021, whose research on computer infrastructure solutions has the potential to halve the energy consumption of data processing centres that are otherwise forecast to consume 20% of the world’s electricity by 2025.

Somerville currently procures all its energy from 100% renewable suppliers. All tungsten lights in the college are replaced when they expire with efficient LEDs, a process which is now over halfway complete. Sensors are being installed in communal rooms to replace the light switches and save energy.

Smart Building Management systems have been installed across the site to monitor, manage and adjust boiler performance. Thermostatic radiator valves are being installed to heat more efficiently, and we are currently piloting the use of water ionisation technology in boiler feeds. Solar panels and ground source heat pumps are installed on two student accommodation buildings for low-carbon heating. Our latest accommodation block, which opened in 2019, utilised CLT in its construction rather than concrete to reduce energy use both during manufacturing and during its operation.

We were the first college to implement food waste recycling. The kitchens recycle all food when safe to do so, and we have implemented a comprehensive waste management strategy. We are currently piloting food bins in student kitchens. We are currently developing further recycling strategies, including the donation of unused computer hardware to Dell for recycling/reuse in schools and a contract to offer terracycling bins for hard to recycle items.

We are proud to host a new conference, OpenAg, looking at the development of sustainable agriculture in partnership with UPL. The conference has been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, but we will make more details available in due course.

We have agreed in principle the appointment of a new Sustainability Officer, who will orchestrate, facilitate and promote our sustainability efforts both internally and externally. The post will be partially funded by our JCR and MCR as well as the college administration, as a gesture in recognition that this is a critical appointment for our entire community.

The Conference of Colleges, the body which represents Oxford University’s colleges, has joined the Zero Carbon Oxford Partnership. The Partnership have pledged to help Oxford achieve net zero carbon by 2040 for scope 1 and 2 emissions, a goal we share. The partnership provides a forum for organisations based in and around the city to collaborate in accelerating emissions reduction, and we look forward to working with other colleges and organisations across the city to reduce emissions.