Student Society Carbon Audit 2024/25

As part of ICU's Sustainability Strategy, which commits us to embedding environmental awareness into every part of students' union life, we wanted to understand the impact our 400+ clubs and societies have on the planet, not to restrict what they do, but to give you the information to make more sustainable choices. Across 28,570 financial transactions and £1.9 million of society expenditure, we identified 1,978 tCO₂e of Scope 3 emissions for the academic year 2024–25.

We used the same tool as Imperial College (HESCET, the Higher Education Scope 3 Emissions Calculation Tool) which means our footprint sits directly alongside Imperial's published 247,239 tCO₂e total and is calculated on the same basis. The approach is spend-based: every pound of society expenditure is multiplied by an emission factor that reflects the average carbon embedded in that type of spending across the economy. That means the numbers capture supply chain and economic activity, not just exhaust pipes, so our ground travel figure of 793 tCO₂e reflects the full transport sector footprint per pound spent, which will look higher than a per-journey estimate would. We've been transparent about this throughout, and the full methodology, every account code mapping, and all the caveats are published alongside this post. Two big ones to flag upfront: not every society records all of its activity centrally, so the real footprint is larger than 1,978 tCO₂e; and the same financial code often means very different things in different societies, which means some of our mappings rely on informed proxies rather than perfect data.

On that point: a huge thank you to everyone who helped me understand how the finances actually work in practice. In particular, the Activities Forum last year ran through the many different ways societies use the account codes, which was invaluable in making the mappings as accurate as possible rather than just applying a single factor blindly to each code. This is a first attempt and we know it isn't perfect. Travel and food together account for over three quarters of what we've found, with the Sports, CGCU and Recreation sectors leading on emissions. We'll be working with those sector committees directly to understand their patterns better and share individual society breakdowns with anyone who wants them.

So what happens next? The immediate priority is raising awareness, sharing these results with society committees, officers and students so that the footprint stops being abstract and becomes something people can act on. We'll be sitting down with the finance team to look at how we improve our account code structure, because better coding next year means better data and less uncertainty. We're also starting conversations about ICU's travel approach — touring, fixtures and away travel account for a significant portion of our footprint, and there may be simple changes, like defaulting to rail for shorter trips, coordinating shared transport, or subsidising more rail where flying is an option. We'll be repeating this audit annually, so that over time we can track whether things are improving. If you spot an error, have a better way of doing this, or want your own society's footprint, get in touch at pres@ic.ac.uk.