Environmental Sustainability

Reuben College Sustainability Vision 

The climate and biodiversity crisis are the biggest challenges faced by current and future generations. At Reuben College we want to lead by example, to be a college that not only mitigates its impact on the environment and biodiversity, but one that actively improves it. This forms one the colleges core themes (Environmental Change), and is embedded across the College. We are aiming to achieve net zero carbon and biodiversity net gain no later than 2035 and have formed an Environmental Sustainability Committee to guide and oversee our approach to sustainability.  

Expand All

Our sustainability strategy sets out the path we’ll take to sustainability, and focuses on 7 key areas across the College. As we are a new college, the initial implementation of our strategy focuses on identifying key areas for action and collecting baseline data. 

1) Energy use and carbon emissions of college estate  

2) Travel  

3) Food  

4) Resource use & investments  

5) Waste management  

6) Biodiversity  

7) Education and Research  

Find out more about how the University as a whole is approaching the Climate and the Environment at Oxford. 

To support the delivery of our sustainability goals, Jillian (Jilly) Mowbray works as our Sustainability Officer, advising on a range of environmental sustainability issues. Jilly supports the advancement and delivery of the college environmental strategy and additional interventions to promote sustainability. 

We are also lucky to have an excellent Environment and Ethics (E&E) student representative, who champions these issues. The E&E rep works to promote sustainability at Reuben, organise sustainability themed events, raise issues at committee, and engage with the broader university community. 

Our Environmental Sustainability Committee, chaired by Professor Philip Stier, is made up of representatives from across the Reuben’s community, including staff, students and Fellows. The Committee meets once a term to advance and deliver the College’s Sustainability Strategy and push the embed sustainability across the College.  

To better track and understand our environmental impact, the College is using the College Carbon Emissions Toolkit to monitor emissions.

Our Sustainability Officer worked with College sustainability leads to develop this toolkit, which helps colleges calculate emissions in an aligned way moving forward. The tool was created for the 2024-2025 academic year, aligning with University reporting, and using the relative DEFRA carbon emissions conversion factors.

The toolkit currently calculates Scope 1 and 2 emissions, alongside elements of Scope 3 including water, waste, T&D losses* and well-to-tank (WTT)** emissions, using data that is readily available to colleges. Additional Scope 3 categories will be incorporated in future versions.

See the Reuben College emissions calculated using the College Carbon Emissions Toolkit for 2024-2025

* The losses incurred during the transmission and distribution of electricity
**Well-to-Tank: the emissions and environmental impacts associated with the extraction, processing, and transportation of fuels before they are used in vehicles or other applications.’