Colchester Institute declared a climate emergency in October 2021, and pledged to reduce scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 with full net zero in operation by 2042. Our latest independently verified carbon report shows that in five years since July 2020, there has been a 33% reduction in carbon emissions, despite a significant growth in college activities.
We have a call to action for all colleagues to support achievement of our targets whilst crucially using our influence to raise awareness among students and our wider college community. There is much to do to continue the pace of progress, with current and recent initiatives underway to raise awareness including:
- Leading by example in declaring a climate emergency, publishing progress against targets and adopting the FE Climate Action Roadmap
- Investing £6m in Decarbonisation replacing building elements and gas boilers with Heat Pumps ensuring carbon savings of 290 tonnes annually
- Installing near 1,000 Solar PV panels across our main two campuses
- Launching our substantial Net Zero and Renewables Centre in 2024, supporting training in 6 low carbon technologies
- Operating an Electric Vehicle Charging Station and replacing all diesel pool cars with electric
- Downsizing the number of corridor printers on site and moving to a cold print solution to reduce energy consumption by 70%
- Upgrading the Colchester data centre including replacing core switch, back-up systems and air conditioning units to save energy
- Enabling auto-off scripts that run at 6pm every night to ensure PC’s, AV systems and Printers turn off to reduce residual consumption
- Delivering on 55 actions of the original ’50-point plan for Energy Reduction’ first identified in 2022. 26 more are still work in progress.
- Mapping UN Sustainable Development Goals to our core curriculum and bringing forward new green skills curricula, including through our new Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Training Centre in planning for 2026 delivery.
Read our new Environmental and Sustainability Strategy below which was launched on 24 October 2025. This describes our plans to support nature restoration alongside further carbon reduction initiatives to help increase awareness and support preservation of the environment for future generations.
Environmental and Sustainability Strategy 2025-2028
Sustainability In The News
How you can make a difference at the College
You can work with the College and join our student Climate Forum. As a part of this, you can advise on:
- Curriculum development
- Green Initiatives (e.g. tree planting, cycle to college schemes)
- Ways to engage your peers in making greener choices
- Organising guest speakers or trips to climate events or training
To support Colchester Institute’s place as a leader in the development of a sustainable, decarbonised future economy, we will continue to change how we act as a business. In 2022 at our Colchester Campus we completed a £5m project to reduce our own carbon footprint which included major alterations, along with improvements, of key buildings. We have introduced new charging facilities for electric cars and are planting 200 trees this year.
Previously, we ran a successful pilot for some of our students in Carbon Literacy, which is now a feature of every course. This ensures all students have the opportunity to study and discuss the issues arising from the Climate Emergency.
To do that it is vital that we all understand the environmental challenges facing Essex, England, and our planet. This must, and will, become an ever more important part of what our students learn at the College.
