Within our Campus Management Climate Action policy our commitment is to 'Maintain behavioural changes that have reduced the amount of carbon and direct emissions produced from commuting, business and operational travel. Promote and incentivize travel choices informed by carbon reduction and health and wellbeing as documented within the SHU Travel Plan'. 

Our Measures and Targets

2018/19 Scope 1 Baseline footprint

• 30.052 kg CO2e (Scope 1 – fleet)
• 4,349,589 kg CO2e (Scope 2 – business travel and commuting)
• Target to have a fully electrified fleet by 2024 and halve scope 3 emissions by 2030

Scope 1 travel is the fuel used by the University’s leased vans and vehicles used across the estate, this has decreased through the years as more electric vans have been added to the fleet and plans are in place to fully electrify the fleet by 2024 on a cyclical replacement programme.

Scope 3 travel is much wider. The staff commute and business travel are areas that have been monitored for years through the ISO 14001 / 50001 systems, however the University has little information on student travel, which, when accounting for overseas students, is potentially a large element of the University’s scope 3 carbon footprint. The long-term target is to halve the University’s scope 3 emissions by 2030, and be net zero in scope 3 by 2050, however, to achieve this, the University first needs to know how large the footprint is.

During the 2022 year, the University engaged with travel consultants to map the remainder of the University’s scope 3 travel carbon footprint and develop a travel plan to meet the long-term targets and encourage active travel through communications, initiatives, infrastructure and the accelerated campus plan. 

Objectives

Actions to complete in the 2023/24 year are:

• Finalise and publish a SHU-wide travel plan, and use this to set clear direction for sustainable travel across the University, including establishing an action plan to achieve scope 3 reductions
• Continue electrification of vehicle fleet as projected in Climate Action Strategy (42.68% reduction in CO2e compared to 2018/19 baseline)
• Complete full baseline for scope 3 travel including student travel through distribution of staff and student travel surveys

To measure improvements and trends in commuting and business travel, we launched the colleague travel survey.

The 2015—16 baseline recorded that the staff commute produces almost 10 tonnes CO2 per day, with the largest proportion of staff using low or zero carbon travel. Our initiatives and campaigns encourage the use of more sustainable travel and this is embedded within our Travel Plan.

The survey is now conducted bi-biennially to evaluate the effectiveness of our messages in reducing our commute CO2 emissions. Business travel within the university is also monitored regularly through the transport booking system.

In 2022 we also conducted or first Student Travel Survey looking at the impact of travel to and from out of term addresses as well as how our Students travel onto Campus on a daily basis. 

The key findings of both the Staff and Student Travel surveys in 2022 can be found within the Travel Plan which highlights, particularly for staff, travel behaviour changes as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to more hybrid working for many University staff. 

To reduce emissions, the University has introduced electric vans to its fleet. This, alongside operational changes to increase efficiency, have resulted in our fleet being ECOstars accredited.

Our vehicles are fitted with trackers to record mileage and All- Star fuel cards are used to purchase fuel. This allows us to accurately monitor the amount of fuel used and mileage per month.

Despite the increased use and growth in number of vehicles in our fleet, emissions have dropped by 11.2% over the past four years. Furthermore, emissions per vehicle have fallen by 17.83%.

Progress on reducing our long-term impacts is fed back to the University's transport and vehicle group, attended by key stakeholders.

We work with the South Yorkshire Passenger Travel Executive (SYPTE) to negotiate the best deals for students to support their journeys to our campuses on public transport. All students can travel for £1.50 on Sheffield buses when presenting a valid student card as well as:

There are also facilities provided on site to make travel as easy as possible, these include:

Detailed information on sustainable public transport options can be found in the visit us pages.

There are numerous discounts available to staff to help reduce the cost of public and active travel including: