Sustainability

Along with our city, we’re on a critical journey to be carbon net zero by 2030. 

We’re here to inspire people - both individuals and organisations - to come together to take action.

Becoming carbon net zero by 2030 is an enormous challenge. We’re making changes and driving sustainable behaviour across everything we do.

The scale of the climate crisis is huge, but science and human ingenuity can make a difference. When we come together great things can happen.

Climate emergency declaration

In October 2023, we sent an open letter to the Prime Minister and UK Government imploring them to reconsider the allowance of new oil and gas licences in the North Sea, and to push forward with our net zero ambition, rather than delay it. Read the full letter here. 

Creating a sustainable future

As a science centre, we’re in a unique position to bridge the gap between science and people. We can play a motivating and encouraging role to help decarbonise our society.

To be carbon net zero by 2030, we will:

1) Reduce our carbon emissions to the lowest level possible
2) Invest in projects to remove our remaining carbon emissions from the atmosphere

We promise to:

Do – be a venue that’s as environmentally sustainable as possible
Talk – spark conversations to inspire our audiences to take positive action for the planet
Share – extend beyond our walls to support Bristol’s transition to carbon net zero and to support our sector in decarbonisation 

Our journey to net zero

 

We've been working on our sustainability journey since 2010, and in 2019 we declared a climate emergency. So far, we've: 

• Reduced our energy consumption by 31% between 2011-2020 (we’ve mostly been closed since then due to the pandemic and the roof fire in 2022)
• Ensured all our energy comes from clean, renewable energy resources within the UK
• Installed new solar panels on our roof that will generate 12% of our building’s energy requirements
• Reduced our amount of water used to flush toilets by 30%
• Fitted Bristol’s first LED car park

• Joined Bristol Climate Leaders – a growing network run by Bristol Green Capital for organisations with ambitions to be carbon neutral by 2030
• Launched the Association of Science and Discovery Centres (ASDC) Decarbonisation Group – sharing best practice within the science centre sector
• Run the ‘Festival for our Future’ event – in October half term 2022, 5 days celebrating the power of collective action around climate change
• Removed gas from our main building
• Switched our diesel vans to second-hand electric vehicles

The road ahead

 

Here's some of the projects that we'll be focussing on in the future:

• Decarbonisation – transforming our operations and estate to reduce our emissions that contribute to climate change
• Sustainable visitor travel – we’ll be looking at how we can support more sustainable forms of transport such as walking, cycling, public transport and electric vehicles
• Introducing a circular economy shop - reimagining our shop so that we focus on repair, re-use and recycling of products, considering their whole life-cycle.
• Supplier engagement – working with and supporting our suppliers to measure and decrease their impact on the environment and support ethical procurement practices
• Waste reduction – reducing the amount of waste we produce on site and reducing how much goes to landfill
• Biodiversity – installing more beehives on our roof, to support local biodiversity
• Climate change adaptation – changing our site and operation to make us more resilient to the local and global impacts of climate change