Sustainability Blog Feb 2026

• 2019 - set a target to be ‘carbon net zero by 2030’ after becoming the first science centre in the world to declare a climate emergency

• April 2025 - achieved net zero on scopes 1 and 2  

• April 2025 - announced our new, revised decarbonisation target 

• November 2025 - sustainability consultancy service launched 

First, a spot of context: 

In April 2025, we announced an ambitious new decarbonisation target, you can read all about it in our press release on our new decarbonisation targets. 

Since then, we’ve been busy sharing our journey of resetting the target, both locally in Bristol and further a-field with partners across the UK.

Our target - why the reset and why it matters:

 In 2019, we set a target to be ‘carbon net zero by 2030’ after becoming the first science centre in the world to declare a climate emergency. Five years later, after much data collection and analysis, we realised two things: 

1) we were on track to be net zero in scopes 1 and 2 by April 2025 and 
2) we couldn’t reach net zero for our scope 3 emissions by 2030.

These insights made it clear that we needed to reset our target - a bold but necessary step.

It was a big move to reset, and a bit of a scary one; we knew many organisations faced similar challenges but hesitate to adjust their targets publicly. A target reset might feel like a you’ve failed or reflect as a lack of effort or legitimacy. 

But by being honest and being one of the first in our sector and city, we hoped to encourage others to see this doesn’t have to be the case, and to reframe their sustainability goals realistically while still striving for meaningful progress. 

We’ve now got an updated target that provides a clearer, more achievable path forward. It’s ambitious but grounded in practical steps, ensuring we can keep moving forwards - you can see all about it in this timeline which details out some of the projects that we’ll be doing to reach our target.

Sharing locally in Bristol:

Following our new target announcement, the Bristol Climate and Nature Partnership (BCNP) invited us to host a public event to discuss our new target as part of their Climate Action Programme. 

We were delighted to be asked, especially as a long-standing member of the BCNP and part of their Climate Leaders Group since 2020. The partnership and the Climate Leaders Group has been instrumental in helping us refine and communicate our decarbonisation efforts and learn about others’. 

We hosted an event in June 2025 to share and discuss the revised target, approach and learnings - it was a great event with rich, deep engagement and some really useful, progressive conversations had.

After the event, the conversations proved just as valuable as the presentation. One attendee summed it up perfectly, some lovely feedback to have. 

Following the event, BCNP suggested featuring us as a case study in a new resource for organisations looking at resetting targets - especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs – like us) who may feel overwhelmed by the decarbonisation landscape and are looking for guidance on what to do about their struggling targets. 

This resource is now published, free and available here: Resetting Climate Targets Guide

It serves as a practical guide to resetting and communicating targets. Our journey features as the main case study, hopefully a useful example showing that meaningful progress is possible.  

Sharing further afield:

But our work hasn't been confined to Bristol. In January 2026, we presented the story of our new target and the learnings from it at the Association of Science and Discovery Centres (ASDC - the network of all science and discovery centres, like We The Curious, from around the UK and Ireland) monthly members’ forum.  We shared our story, and were able to hear about where other centres are with their decarbonisation targets in this session; a great space for reflections and to inspire some action.

And, to spread our learnings even further, we’ve taken our story across the pond with a recent feature in the Arizona State University newsletter, aiming to inspire science centres worldwide. We hope this will spark new conversations, encourage other institutions to set or reset their own targets, and accelerate progress.

Take the next step … together:

We’ve spent the past year resetting our own target, listening to peers, and sharing what we’ve learned across our networks. Now it’s your turn.

✅ Set a target if you don’t have one yet or reset an existing one so it’s both realistic and ambitious.

✅ Join the conversation in sector forums, local sustainability groups, or city‑wide networks – the more we share, the stronger the collective push toward a decarbonised future.

✅ Don’t let a roadblock stop you; a wealth of resources, peer advice and specialist expertise is at hand.

To make the journey easier, we’ve just launched a consultancy service that can support every stage of decarbonisation - from organisational sustainability and procurement to target-setting and carbon accounting 101.