Sustainability: addressing our environmental impacts

Sustainability: addressing our environmental impacts

Wellcome is committed to reducing the environmental impact and carbon emissions of our work. We also work with the wider research community to support more environmentally sustainable research practices.

Driving impact through our mission

Putting health at the heart of climate action

Wellcome supports science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone.

Our biggest contribution to environmental sustainability is advancing the world’s understanding of the interrelations between climate, nature and human health.

Our strategic Climate and Health programme is funding a transformation in the scale of research into the impacts of climate change on human health, and using the evidence that is generated to advocate for change.
 

Adapting to climate change

Climate change is also a risk to our ability to deliver our mission, due to its increasing impacts on the scale and scope of the health challenges we aim to tackle, the effectiveness of the research and solutions we fund, and the resilience of our functions including operations and investments.

Some of these risks are outside our control, but we can plan and adapt to protect delivery of our mission in a warming world. We have mapped key climate risks against our risk framework and are actively considering how to mitigate and adapt to these risks. More detail can be found in the Risk management section of our Annual Report.

Driving impact through leadership

Making research more sustainable

To deliver our mission now and in the future, we need to consider the environmental sustainability of the research we fund.

By integrating sustainability into our funding processes and decisions and collaborating with the sector, we aim to accelerate the development and adoption of more environmentally sustainable research practices and reduce the carbon emissions associated with the research we fund.

Our Environmental sustainability funding policy sets out expectations for the researchers and organisations we fund to adopt sustainable research practices. And we are a founding signatory of the Concordat for the Environmental Sustainability of Research and Innovation Practice, which sets a shared ambition for cutting-edge research to be delivered in a more environmentally responsible and sustainable way.

Addressing the impact of our activities

How we operate is part of our impact in the world and we are committed to tackling the environmental impacts of our own activities, as part of our ISO 14001 certified Environmental Management System.

We take a holistic approach that considers our carbon emissions, as well as other environmental impacts such as energy and water use, waste and resources, and air quality. 
 

Areas of focus for action

We identified opportunities for environmental action across our following areas of activity:

• Travel and events: Addressing the carbon impact of our business travel 
  and making our events more sustainable.
• Buildings and facilities: Embedding environmental sustainability into how we operate, maintain and develop our buildings and facilities.
• Data and technology: Reducing the environmental impact of our data and technology and use it as an enabler for change.
• Wellcome Collection: Embedding sustainability considerations in how we care for our collections and deliver our public programmes.
• Procurement: Embedding environmental sustainability in how we purchase goods and services and work with our suppliers.
• Investments: Driving down carbon emissions and reaching net zero for our investment portfolio.
• People and culture: Engaging, upskilling, and empowering our people to embed sustainability in our culture and the delivery of our mission.

Our Environmental sustainability framework sets prioritised roadmaps to deliver these ambitions and we report our progress in the Environmental section of our Annual Report. 
 

Our carbon footprint and net zero targets

We need to lead by example and are committed to achieving net zero emissions.

In line with climate science, we aim to reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 (market-based) greenhouse gas emissions of the Wellcome Trust by 90% by 2030 against a 2018/19 baseline. We plan to deliver this by decarbonising our buildings on Euston Road in London, UK.

Additionally, we aim to achieve net zero across our entire value chain (scope 3 emissions) by 2050 at the latest, including aiming to reduce emissions related to our research funding and investment portfolios.

We report our carbon emissions and progress against our targets in our Annual Report and in more details in our dedicated Carbon and Energy report.

Environmental sustainability framework

Details of our approach to sustainability across our mission, leadership and operations

Carbon and energy report

Explore Wellcome's carbon emissions and energy use alongside our net zero targets

Environmental sustainability funding policy

What we expect from the people and organisations we fund

Environmental policy for our operations

Our commitments to managing the environmental impacts of our work

Our team

Our Sustainability team act as an internal centre of expertise and a catalyst for environmental sustainability to be embedded in what Wellcome does, and to strengthen our approach to ESG across the Wellcome Group.

• Charles Joly

  Associate Director, Sustainability

  Wellcome

• Sophie Davie

  Sustainability and ESG lead

  Wellcome

• Alex Walsh

  Environmental and Energy Manager

  Wellcome

Contact our team for any questions about our sustainability activities.