Working together for our future

What does the future hold for sustainability at LSBU?

Social Justice and Global Responsibility

Reducing carbon emissions

As we have every year for more than a decade, we will continue to reduce our carbon emissions each and every year to reach our target of reducing our carbon emissions by 80% by the year 2050 (against a 2009 baseline of 11,694 tCO2e).

Holding ourselves accountable

As an institution, we are now part of several sustainability-focused groups and partnerships, designed to ensure we keep our promises to you and ourselves of tackling climate change. Besides our Sustainability Steering Group at LSBU, we are collaborating with leading organisations and experts in various fields to deliver meaningful change.

Working together

No organisation can do this alone; we must use our global and local networks to become sustainable. Here are some of the ways we are working together, holding ourselves accountable and becoming a university at the forefront of sustainability in both the UK and the world.

External partnerships and networks

LSBU is driving sustainability with a focus on achieving this with support from its global and local partners and networks. The external partnerships include Retrofit London (of the London Councils), Mission Innovation Challenge 7, Lambeth’s Carbon Neutral Steering Group, and Lambeth’s Independent Expert Advisory Group. LSBU also serves on steering groups and committees of other local authorities such as Southwark.

LSBU has long-standing relationships with the London boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth. An MoU with Lambeth Council, signed in October 2020, promotes working in partnership to deal with the effects of the coronavirus crisis, particularly for young people, and to stimulate recovery across the borough. It was intended to provide opportunities for local residents to learn new skills through the LSBU Group; that LSBU research and insight can be used to help Lambeth businesses grow; and that it can support the Council’s aim to be carbon neutral by 2030. The MoU with Southwark (signed in 2021) commits LSBU to increase the number of training and development opportunities for residents, and to make Southwark a leading London borough for health and life sciences.

LSBU is also a member of the London Councils Climate Programmes and has signed an MoU with Enfield and Waltham Forest Knowledge Partners, to be a knowledge partner of the two councils on a number of areas including the decarbonisation of the housing stock of the councils.

The LSBU Green Skills Hub is part of The Mayor’s Academies Programme. It aims to lead on the move to the green economy and net zero with a focus on the skills needs of the residents and businesses of the three local boroughs (Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark).

Lambeth Climate Action Partnership

The LSBU Group is a member of the Lambeth Climate Action Partnership Group. The other members, which are among the most influential public, private, voluntary and community organisations and employers in the borough, are: King’s College Hospital; King’s College London; LSBU Group; Hyde Housing Association; Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing Association; National Theatre; Southbank Centre; Lambeth Schools Partnership; Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Foundation; and Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

The members collaborate with the borough, and help implement and deliver Lambeth’s Climate Action Plan which aims to achieve a more just and sustainable future for the borough. The Lambeth Climate Action Plan, under which the borough “will aim to be net-zero compatible by 2030”, has programmes across Adaptation; Buildings and Energy; Transport; Waste, Consumption and Food; and Biodiversity and Environmental Quality.

London Higher Sustainability Network

LSBU is a member of the London Higher Sustainability Network. The networks have four key aims: Creating a shared community; Being a vehicle for policy response and influence; Being a forum for best practice; and Delivering high-impact projects. The aim of the Sustainability Network is “To share best practice across the sector with regards to environmental sustainability, showcasing the work of London Higher members, and working towards shared targets for environmental practices”. Its activities include co-operating with industry, local government and the private sector “to understand how its members are engaging with partners to ensure environmentally friendly practices”; and demonstrating and understanding how higher education can better co-operate with partners and how it can assist with national and local government targets in relation to environmental sustainability. LSBU signed the “London Higher Sustainability Pledge” in October 2022.

Net Zero Building Centre

The Net Zero Building Centre (NZBC), a joint venture between the Building Services Research and Information Association (BSRIA) and LSBU, was created to be an innovation hub and centre of excellence that builds on the strengths of the two partners in low carbon buildings. BSRIA is a non-profit distributing, member-based association promoting knowledge and providing specialist services for the building services organisations and the construction industry.

The BSRIA LSBU NZBC addresses the issue of mitigating the impacts of the built environment on climate change towards contributing to the aim to limit global temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and attain a Net Zero carbon economy by 2050. It aims to contribute to action on decarbonisation which includes increasing the uptake of existing solutions, and creating world leading innovation to find the breakthroughs.

The NZBC focuses on: Decarbonisation of heating and cooling – including exploration and use of heat networks, heat pump design, energy recovery, electrical building design, storage, hydrogen, renewables, and data centres; Smart building performance – increased technological innovation in the built environment including offsite construction methods, smart manufacturing processes, performance data for monitoring compliance and verification, data driven facilities management and maintenance; Indoor environmental quality – advancing well-being, productivity and the quality of life of building occupants through the application of knowledge on indoor air quality, links between air tightness and ventilation and health outcomes, fire safety, comfort and productivity, well-being, acoustics and vibration; and Policy implementation – producing impactful, applied research that leads to positive change at scale, the centre collaborates with local government to further heat policy, retrofitting and linking building performance to policy.

The NZBC has been a great success, winning grants for significant research projects and producing many knowledge products such as the guides: “Net Zero Carbon Buildings” (2022) and “Indoor Environmental Quality and Net Zero” (2023).

The projects delivered by the NZBC include:

the Home Energy 4 Tomorrow (HE4T) project designing and testing a hybrid heat pump and looking at heat recovery from water utilities
the Affordable Heat Networks Project in Bridgend County council which explores how a dual source heat pump can offer cost reduction options for a Mine Water Heat Network
the Net Zero Innovation Programme with Lambeth Council which explores the skills gaps and local supply chain needs to respond to the climate emergency goal of creating a carbon neutral council by 2030.

Read more about the Net Zero Building Centre.

International linkages

LSBU is a member of several international groups and networks focused on aspects of sustainability. In 2021, LSBU joined the United Nations Habitat UNI partnership (led by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme), joining over 100 universities worldwide. The partnership promotes co-operation between UN-Habitat and institutions of higher education, and facilitates exchanges and collaboration among universities globally to tackle global issues including climate change, urban regeneration, safety in cities, and gender inequality. UNI promotes universities becoming closer partners of cities, and engaged in solving real problems on the ground. The collaborations aspire to create the next generation of urban leaders, managers, researchers and practitioners.

Also in 2021, LSBU also joined the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC) (led by the United Nations Environment Programme), an international initiative focused on: raising ambitions to meet the Paris climate goals regarding retrofitting existing buildings and future-proofing investments in new buildings; and mobilising all actors along the value chain, integrating all stakeholders to play their part.

LSBU Energy Advice Centre

The LSBU Energy Advice Centre is a student-led advice and information service to help households save money on their energy bills, reduce energy consumption and improve energy efficiency. It was opened in January 2023. It offers Londoners resident in the Lambeth and Southwark area, free advice and information on home energy costs such as getting help with heating bills, and advice on grants for home energy improvements and reducing energy costs. It also provides advice on energy decisions around the home. It seeks to contribute to the attainment of SDG1, No Poverty; SDG4, Quality Education; SDG7, Affordable and Clean Energy; and SDG13, Climate Action.

The LSBU Energy Advice Centre, run by undergraduate students in the School of Engineering with guidance by staff members and PhD students of that school, provides the advice to residents and the community in the two boroughs online, by email (energyadvice@lsbu.ac.uk); and in person in the Clarence Centre on the Southwark campus; and at its occasional events around the two boroughs. The advice includes: optimising energy use within the resident’s home; assessment of the energy-demanding systems in the resident’s home including those for heating and lighting, and the insulation. The advice is tailored to the energy needs of the resident. By February 2024, more than 3,000 residents had obtained advice and information from the centre (and many more online). In that month, the centre began to visit additional locations to meet people closer to where they live and work, beginning with visits to Peckham, Camberwell and Canada Water.

The LSBU Energy Advice Centre project received a grant from the charity, UPP Foundation, and is supported by Southwark Council. It was a finalist in the Green Gown Awards in 2024. The university’s award-winning Legal Advice Centres also has undergraduate students as the front-line advisers, and they receive support from post-graduate students and academic staff members.

Internal Centres and Groups

Many centres and groups in LSBU work on sustainability. Short summaries of their activities are now presented.

Centre for Civil and Building Services Engineering Research

The Centre for Civil and Building Services Engineering Research (CCiBSE) in the School of Built Environment and Architecture draws on over many decades of experience in research on Civil and Building Services Engineering, especially Energy, Built Environment, Modelling and LSBU’s reputation in the construction and real estate industry to provide sustainable solutions for the challenges facing the built environment. CiBSE brings together research themes from many fields to enable collaboration with other researchers and industry partners; facilitates the development of engineering solutions that benefit society; and disseminates findings which have an impact on policy and practice.

CCiBSE has undertaken studies on a range of topics including: Integrated Design and Modelling in Energy and Built Environment; Building Physics, Comfort and Performance; Energy and Heat Recovery, Heat Networks and Thermal Storage; Energy Management, Power Systems and Quality; Energy Conversion Technologies - Heat Pumps and other novel Low-Carbon Technologies; Hydrogen Energy Technologies; Decarbonised Heating, Cooling and Power Generation; Coastal and Ocean Engineering; Highways and Transportation Infrastructure Engineering; Waste Management; the Circular Economy; and Water and Environmental Engineering.

The centre has had significant success in securing funding for many research projects. Its flagship projects include:

the Balanced Energy Network (BEN), a £4 million project part-funded by Innovate UK involved a cross-sector supply chain consortium which delivered integrated energy solutions to meet the energy systems challenges of a low-carbon economy: secure, affordable, sustainable energy. It was the first study in the world that to develop both physical and digital network knowledge to integrate systems that enable the balancing of heating, cooling, electricity and carbon to minimise costs – and help combat global warming
the Home Energy 4 Tomorrow (HE4T) project is a collaboration with industry, funded by Innovate UK, to develop a dual source heat pump (DSHP) capable of linking with both air and water heat sinks. The project applied the flexibility and efficiency benefits of a DSHP to develop a heat pump for mass application in building. HE4T developed the potential for water utilities to accelerate the uptake of electrified heat, having studied how water systems can be connected to the DSHPs to boost efficiency. The research was supported by Thames Water and Anglian Water
the aim of the Decarbonised Heating and Cooling with Advanced Technologies project, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), is to develop a new way of recovering waste heat from industry and decarbonise heating and cooling. The research is investigating new ways of providing heating and cooling from energy intensive industries including steel, glass, paper, food and cement; and the new technologies it is using include waste heat recovery at various grades, long-distance transport networks to transfer recovered energy more efficiently, and advanced heating and cooling systems
the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) Institutional link with the Institute of Technology Bandung, Indonesia was on Developing Indonesian Coastal Areas for Sustainable Tourism.

Among the most significant recent projects, in 2021, a member of CiBSE won a £1 million EPSRC grant to work on developing a new way of recovering waste heat from industry and decarbonising heating and cooling through new hydrogen technologies (such as chemical heat pumps to recover waste heat; long-distance transport networks to transfer recovered energy more efficiently; and advanced heating and cooling systems). This will lead to significant cost and energy savings; and reductions in carbon emissions.

Centre for Social Justice and Global Responsibility

The Centre for Social Justice and Global Responsibility provides a forum for critical engagement with social, legal and political responses to change today and in future, drawing on the knowledge of academics at LSBU and other institutions, civil society and governments. The researchers are examining the sources, nature and impact of social injustice, inequality and exclusion in the UK and throughout the world. They examine key issues of social justice reform in many areas such as access to justice, crime, disability, human rights, migration and sustainability, working to ensure understanding and inclusiveness. The centre brings together researchers from seven inter-disciplinary groups in LSBU covering: Crime and Justice (Crime, Harm and Justice); Critical Autism and Disability Studies (Critical Autism and Disabilities Studies); Education and Social Justice (Education for Social Justice); Law and Access to Justice (Law and Justice); Race, Gender and Sexualities (Race, Gender and Sexualities); Space, Place and Society (Space and Place); and Sustainability – Policy, Practice and Pedagogy (Sustainability - Policy, Practice, and Pedagogy).

Centre for the Integrated Delivery of the Built Environment

The Centre for the Integrated Delivery of the Built Environment (IDoBE) is concerned with these four Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): SDG7, Affordable and Clean Energy; SDG9, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure; SDG11, Sustainable Cities and Communities; and SDG13, Climate Action. Its members have expertise in construction, property, surveying, energy, sustainability, and development. IDoBE researchers are working to realise innovation and improvements in construction through improved business processes, and the use of advanced technology such as Building Information Modelling (BIM) for the integrated delivery of sustainable liveable built assets.

IDoBE’s key research themes include: cost certainty, predictability, productivity, construction waste and sustainability in the built environment. The research topics of IDoBE include: BIM; Carbon finance to mitigate climate change; Circular economy; Disaster and Urban Resilience; Health and sustainable buildings; Life-cycle and carbon cost planning; Mental health, equality, gender, diversity, welfare and modern slavery; Resource efficiency, energy and building performance; Smart and intelligent cities and communities; Sustainable built and community environment; Sustainable and resilient infrastructure development; Sustainable urban retrofitting; Waste management; and Wellbeing and the Built Environment.

Among key projects of IDoBE are:

Circular Cementitious Products Embedding Digital Manufacturing (funded by Innovate UK, Foundation Industries Lab to Lab India Collaboration) – the aim is to enhance circularity and sustainability in the built environment in India and UK. The study used local wastes including recycled concrete aggregates, and plastic wastes, and other recycled sources for a digital-driven circular use of cementitious materials in pavement blocks.
Urban Migration For Good – From Forced Displacement to a Good City: the Case of Cabo Delgado, Mozambique (funded under the British Academy’s Interdisciplinary Programme) – explores the question, “What makes a good city”. It examines the concepts of a ‘good city’ in a least-developed country and in a context of urban crises; this is an extreme case in which to explore ‘good city’ visions. The research seeks to contribute to develop ideas to improve the lives of the poorest urban dwellers, which has broad replicability.

For any enquiries about IDoBE, please contact the Lead, Zulfikar Adamu (zulfikar.adamu@lsbu.ac.uk).

London Centre for Energy Engineering

The London Centre for Energy Engineering (LCEE) brings together staff members in the School of Engineering to undertake cutting-edge multi-disciplinary energy research. It enables research collaboration across related energy engineering themes. The mission of LCEE is to: be an internationally leading organisation undertaking innovative and multi-disciplinary research in energy; bring together researchers in the school to form an appropriate critical mass to demonstrate and apply its potential in the UK and abroad; be a leading provider of training for capacity building in energy research; be a university partner of choice on energy research for industry and other organisations globally; and influence energy policy and strategy in the UK.

The research themes of LCEE are: Computational Materials Design for Energy; Heating and Cooling; Energy Storage – Cryogenic energy storage and Batteries and supercapacitors; and Energy Conversion – Photovoltaics and Renewable fuel production. Its flagship projects include:

the Innovate UK funded project (£4,000,000, 2019-2023) Green Smart Community Integrated Energy System (GreenScies), a revolutionary low-carbon underground smart energy grid in London and the West Midlands (the project partners are Islington Council and Transport for London (TfL)) which provides an answer to the challenge of powering inner cities of the future. It aims to provide low-carbon and low-cost transport, power and heat to some 12,500 homes in the London Borough of Islington and Sandwell in the West Midlands, transforming lives, homes and businesses into sustainable energy districts, while tackling fuel poverty and the impact of climate change.
the HORIZON2020 project (€7,045,594, 2016-2021), Cryogenic Energy Storage for Renewable Refrigeration and Power Supply (CryoHub) which investigates and seeks to extend the potential of large-scale Cryogenic Energy Storage and apply the stored energy for both cooling and energy generation. CryoHub employs renewable sources to liquefy and store cryogens, helping to balance the power grid, while meeting the cooling demand of a refrigerated food warehouse and recovering the waste heat from its equipment and components. The project is designed to maximise the efficiency of cryogenic energy efficiency by recovering energy from cooling and heating. The objects in the study, refrigerated warehouses for chilled and frozen food commodities, are large electricity consumers which have powerful installed capacities for cooling and heating, and waste substantial amounts of heat.

For more information on the London Centre for Energy Engineering, please contact the Lead, Dr Suela Kellici (kellicis@lsbu.ac.uk).

South Bank Applied BioEngineering Research

The South Bank Applied BioEngineering Research (SABER) fosters multi-disciplinary collaborative research across the schools in LSBU and universities and research centres in the UK and overseas. It undertakes research and provides training in many areas including: Microwave Imaging, Ultrasound Imaging, Skin Imaging, Wearable Technologies, AI for Image and Signal Analysis, Modelling and Analysis of Deformations, Human Biomechanics, Evolutionary Biomechanics, Human Biological Variation, Adaptive Structures and Biomimicry. The centre launched the first course in Anthro-engineering in the world. The programme merges the fields of anthropology and engineering.

The mission and values SABER are to: undertake internationally leading research in bioengineering; deliver excellence, professionalism, integrity, inclusivity and creativity in bioengineering research; facilitate the development of staff members, early career researchers and PhD students; and promote engagement with industry.

The research pillars are: Imaging and Sensing – imaging (breast, brain and skin cancer, and the overall human body), infrared and electronic sensing technologies for skin measurements, wireless sensor networks for biomedical applications, indoor radar and artificial intelligence; Biomechanics – modelling and analysis of deformations, gait analysis and modelling of mechanics of animal whiskers; Anthro-Engineering – primate evolutionary biomechanics and human biological variation. Bio-inspired Technologies – biomimicry (focusing on insect wings and insect adaptations), adaptive structures and smart manufacturing.

Some of the sustainability-related projects of the centre are:

Bioinspired Grippers for Gentle Handling and Effective Manipulation (Royal Society, 2023-2024)
A Green, Connected and Prosperous Britain (EPSRC NetworkPlus, 2022-2025) – the first research study in the UK to investigate and strengthen links between 5G platforms and the energy sector
Net Zero Futures (Greater London Authority, 2022)
High-resolution, Acquisition, Waveform, Kontinuous and Synchronous Big-data Instrument (HAWKSBI) device development for improving renewable energy and power grid efficiency (Innovate UK, 2021-2024)
Energy Management and Analysis Exploiting Existing Building Management Systems Infrastructure and Data (EPSRC, 2014-2017)
Energy Efficiency in Buildings Programme: DANCER (Digital Agent Networking for Customer Energy Reduction) (EPSRC, 2012-2017).

Find more information on South Bank Applied BioEngineering Research.

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