Executive summary
Introduction and who this work is aimed at
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Executive Summary >> Part One >> Part Two >> Part Three >> Part Four >> Glossary >> References
In Part Three, we explore opportunities for individual institutions and the sector.
UK universities’ estates, with a total extent of 6,390.1 ha, hold a range of opportunities to make positive contributions to environmental sustainability, together with the potential to generate sustainable income.
We explore some of those opportunities in detail (renewable electricity and afforestation), while other opportunities (for example, urban green infrastructure/nature-based solutions for built space or improvement of the quality of existing land use such as grasslands) are beyond the scope of this report.
We should note that our datasets are not able to pick out existing examples of solar and wind generation on universities’ land or instances of afforestation, however there are a number of successful examples across the sector which may offer inspiration. These are included in the section Sector examples on the ground at the end of this part of the report.
How land is used can create or erode value in various ways. In a blunt example, a site may be held as protected area, generating little monetary value but offering a haven for nature and the wellbeing of local people; or it might be developed into a factory generating substantial monetary profit but polluting local air and water, with negative impacts on nature and people.
Use of land is frequently contested, as people and stakeholders may differ in their view of what is the best, fairest or most valuable use for land.
This also raises the important question of opportunity costs: if a piece of land is put to a certain use, that often means that it is unavailable for other uses. For example, if an area is kept as grassland it may have use for recreation or sport, but it cannot be used for growing crops, as an office or laboratory, and so on.
This is not always the case however. For example, in some contexts land can be used to generate renewable energy while still having other uses, and can provide different kinds of use or value at the same time[1]. Or in other cases, the purpose of the land may be retained while changing the nature of its surface cover – for example, converting an astroturf sports field (which as an artificial surface constitutes built environment) to a grass playing field.
The complexity of these questions and their importance for society puts them on the radar at the national level[2] as well as globally[3].
As with other parts of this work, our aim is to explore the opportunity space for institutions and the sector around how they use their land. This may spark new perspectives on the value of how land is used, and around the opportunity costs of different decisions.
The opportunities that we consider[4] in detail are:
- Renewable energy generation (wind and solar)
- Afforestation.
These opportunities are tempered by constraints which vary for each institution.
The first constraint is location. For example, some parts of the country receive more or less sunlight or wind than others, influenced by local microclimates as well as regional weather patterns. Sites may also be more or less suitable for afforestation due to a range of factors.
The second constraint is availability of suitable land, which varies substantially across institutions as we have seen in Part One. Here we use some broad principles to sketch the opportunity space.
Our approach assumes no removal of woodland, due to the negative impacts of deforestation on climate change, biodiversity and other natural systems. Opportunities for renewable installations therefore focus on built land and grassland – the former offering opportunities for renewable power generation, and the latter offering opportunities for renewable power or conversion to forest.
These interventions would also have differing impacts on the spaces in question: it is possible to fit some types of renewable energy installations on buildings or other built areas such as car parks without changing the essential land use. This is not strictly the case with grassland, where building such installations brings at least some elements of built environment to the space, although such systems can also coexist with other forms of land use at the same time[5].
For the UK’s universities, a good amount of the land currently under grass cover may likely have a specific purpose attached to that status – for example, playing fields or aesthetic value. This brings the discussion back to the questions of opportunity costs and subjective value for different stakeholders.
For any major changes to sites, as with all infrastructure projects the views and needs of affected people need to be taken into account. While this is the case, universities which have land available (which maps most squarely to our Clusters 2 and 3 – see Part One) may weigh up the perceived value of the current land use with the value that that could be created if a portion of that land was repurposed.
A number of other factors may also condition the suitability of individual sites for the opportunities explored here. These include slope, aspect, waterlogging or soil suitability, and – particularly for the case of wind energy – the fact that minimum areas of contiguous space may be necessary to make it feasible to build large structures.
We also assumed that where institutions have built spaces (particularly buildings), in most cases they would not be knocking these down to plant woodlands.
But we would invite colleagues to challenge this. The built category comprises all built surfaces including concrete paths, road and carparks as well as buildings. In the spirit of thinking differently, institutions may consider whether some of these built surfaces or even areas currently occupied by buildings might provide more benefits if they were converted to natural state such as forest, wetlands or grassland – such as the astroturf playing field example provided above. This may apply particularly in conditions with increased remote learning and homeworking, which may reduce the need for teaching and office spaces on university campuses.
The questions involved are complex, but the case might be particularly strong for buildings which face substantial flood risk, for example, where conversion of the area to forest or wetland would not only remove the risk of damage to the building itself but also provide better flood protection to surrounding areas.
Renewable energy depends on harnessing energy supplied by the natural environment, two common forms being capture of the natural energy from sunlight and from wind.
In broad terms, solar irradiance – which determines the amount of energy it is possible to generate from the sun – shows a south-north cline across the UK, with generally higher levels of sunlight closer to the coasts. There is also a notable drop in solar suitability in upland areas.
Wind potential displays almost the inverse to this, with higher potential in the north of the country and in upland areas. Some coastal areas, especially on the west coast, display both high solar and high wind potential.
Sector map datasets: solar and wind energy potential
Institutions can obtain a high-level sense of the suitability of their location for solar and wind generation from our maps (with the usual caveats that sunlight and wind at specific sites will also likely be affected by local factors such as aspect, the surrounding environment etc). Again, this can help institutions to understand their opportunity space, paving the way for more detailed site-specific work.
Here, our analysis combines the inherent suitability of sites based on weather conditions with the availability of land that may be suitable for renewable installations (ie. built land and grassland).
The two charts in this section set out the opportunities for built land and grassland respectively.
Built land is simpler to model, as – due to technical constraints – generally only solar installations could be feasible at these sites.
The first chart explores opportunities for renewable energy on built land. It sets out institutions according to the mean solar potential across their site (the y axis) and the total built area available (the x axis). The colour of each datapoint indicates the percentage of that institution’s estate which is built.
As with the risks data, these charts show current conditions. We do not have datasets that can show wind and solar energy potential of university sites under future climate scenarios such as the 2C and 4C temperature rise scenarios.
There is a fair range (roughly around 20%) in average solar irradiance between institutions whose sites have the highest average solar potential (more than 1,100 kilowatt-hours per kilowatt-peak, kWh/kWp) and those which have the lowest (less than 900 kWh/kWp).
There is also a wide range of space available: while a small number of institutions have more than 100 hectares of built terrain, the majority have much less than this. Whether built areas would be suitable or feasible for solar installations in reality is another question, which we will come to shortly.
Exploring opportunities for renewables on grassland is more complex because both solar and wind might be feasible on grassland sites.
In the chart below, the canvas of the two axes speaks to inherent site suitability (wind is on the x axis, and solar on the y axis), while the size and colour of each datapoint representing an institution offers a view of the opportunity space in terms of the amount of suitable land which may be available.
Wind potential displays a much wider range than solar – around 500% – between those institutions with the lowest potential (less than 50 watts per square metre, w/m2) and those with the highest (nearly 250 w/m2). While some institutions have a substantially higher wind potential, others have relatively better solar potential; and some have moderate potential for both.
Many institutions – particularly the larger ones – also display variation across their sites. For example, the University of Bristol has an average annual wind generation capacity around 80 w/m2 – close to the sector average. However, its estate contains areas with around double this power potential.
Opportunities: renewable energy on grassland
Institutions may use this as a first reference point to open the conversation as to whether initiating feasibility work is worthwhile.
Again, this analysis can provide high-level indications of the opportunity space, but only a portion of the land which is available in theory would realistically be suitable, and sites display many on-the-ground complexities which are not shown here.
A range of constraints condition the feasibility of building renewable energy installations on university sites, including questions of minimum space needed to make an installation viable, proximity to other activities and associated disturbance, and potentially also proximity to energy demand if institutions consider supplying energy to other users beyond their own needs.
All natural ecosystems both emit and sequester carbon as part of the earth’s carbon cycle[6], in processes which vary according to ecosystem type and climate type.
The land use data calculated for this report allows us to make estimates for the aggregate carbon flux of university lands in the UK, according to their land use. Our calculations are based on generalised carbon flux factors for the different land covers at temperate latitudes, as reflected in aggregate data at the national level in the UK Natural Capital Accounts (see Part Four). As high-level factors, these do not account for the condition of the relevant ecosystems, climate-related or other local variables, or other factors which can affect carbon flux.
The table below indicates the land area for each type of land use on the HE estate and the carbon flux factor for each hectare of the relevant land use, using these to calculate the aggregate carbon flux for each land use category on university lands, and the total flux when all forms of land use are accounted for. The calculations assume that land use is stable, and that no land cover is converted to another type, which may sequester or release carbon in the process.
Built environment and water both display negative carbon flux, indicating that they are (currently) net emitters of carbon, while grassland and trees both sequester carbon on balance.
With the overall land use and carbon flux profile of the HE estate, we can estimate that university lands draw down around 3,161.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) of greenhouse gases each year. This is in fact a relatively small amount compared to the sector’s carbon emissions – for reference, the total scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions reported for 135 institutions in the 2022/23 EMR is 1,419,112 tCO2e.
Carbon flux from HE estates land use
While forest land and grassland both remove carbon from the atmosphere, the former does it at almost double rate than the latter. While the different impacts may not be so great for an individual piece of land, they start to become significant at the aggregate level. This is why halting deforestation and expansion of the world’s forests are essential planks of most or all pathways to avoiding catastrophic temperature rises due to climate change.
Reforestation and afforestation also carry substantial benefits for biodiversity and the ecosystem services provided by forests such as improving soil stability, preventing floods and supporting health and well-being (see Part Four for further discussion of ecosystem services).
We asked the question: how much atmospheric carbon could be drawn down if some of UK universities’ grasslands were converted to forest? Here again, our analysis combines the inherent suitability of sites with the availability of land that may be suitable for renewable installations (ie. grassland).
All of the UK’s climate falls in the temperate region, a wide band of the earth’s climate zones which runs between roughly 23.5° and 66.5° of latitude to the north and south of the equator (in other words, between the tropics and the Arctic and Antarctic circles). Although the world’s temperate regions display broad similarities in their climate (which distinguishes them from the boreal and tropical regions), climatic conditions vary considerably across these temperate areas according to a large number of variables.
Within the climate zones, the world can further be mapped into distinct biomes – large ecological areas based on similarities of typical climate, soil, vegetation, and wildlife. Most of the UK (along with much of Europe) falls in the Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome – which refers to the natural vegetation to which land would revert without human intervention. This indicates that, in broad terms, ecological systems are fairly similar across the country (although a small area – some parts of the Scottish Highlands where conditions are colder – fall in the Temperature conifer forests biome).
A further layer of typology is also distinguished between the higher-level biomes and the locally-specific dynamics of each individual habitat[7]. This layer is known as “ecoregions”. The UK contains four ecoregions, all of which are temperate, but which also display some differences in their environment and conditions. These are shown on our sector map.
Ecoregions in the UK: characteristics
Although tree growth is affected by a range of locally-specific factors, we can sketch an outline sense of the suitability of conditions for afforestation according to the ecoregion in which they are found. These are due to conditions such as those set out in the table above including moisture, sun, wind, soil nutrients, proximity to oceans and a range of other factors, all of which influence which types of trees and plants can grow most successfully[8].
In broad terms, the suitability of local environments to support tree growth and carbon sequestration shows the following clines across the UK’s ecoregions, from most to least suitable, under current climate conditions:
Ecoregions and HE estates
Although our site suitability assessment here is more impressionistic than the assessments of solar and wind suitability, we can draw rough indications of the suitability of sites in different ecoregions of the UK. Here we combine these with the granular data that we have on the availability of suitable land (ie. grassland) at different institutions.
Again, a large range of localised factors can determine the suitability of sites. Our maps show the UK’s ecoregions; and the suitability of conditions for growth of mixed broadleaf forest with bluebell and wild hyacinth (which we use as a proxy for mixed broadleaf forest in general), reflecting factors such as accumulated temperature, soil moisture, and nutrient availability, among others[9].
These conditions can also be expected to change as the UK’s climate patterns change, but we do not have data on how this might play out.
Sector map datasets: solar and wind energy potential
We hope that these insights may help institutions to consider their options around opportunities for afforestation and other opportunities for improving the lands in their locality.
For exploring these opportunities, local level thinking about the track of climate and environmental changes will be valuable. While established species may thrive in current conditions, these conditions may change over the coming decades. Afforestation and nature restoration initiatives will therefore benefit from detailed thinking about what species can be expected to thrive in future conditions.
The future climate conditions data introduced in Part Two and included in the sector mapping tool may prove useful for this. Institutions can also refer to sector resources such as EAUC’s University and College Land for Carbon[11].
Afforestation offers potential economic opportunities through engagement with nascent carbon markets. Although these are likely to be smaller in financial terms than the potential revenue generation from renewable energy, as noted expanding forest land provides many other benefits by supporting biodiversity, healthy ecosystems, flood protection and a range of other ecosystem services (see Part Four for further discussion).
We have looked at the opportunity space from a perspective of individual institutions. Here we consider the potential impacts at the aggregate level of the opportunities explored in the earlier sections.
At the sector level, we can see what opportunities are particularly relevant or not available to different groups of institutions based around their land profile with reference to the clusters in our typology in Part One.
It is worth noting that the salient land cover for each cluster does not necessarily limit opportunities to that land cover type. For example, institutions in cluster 3 with relatively high proportions of forest land likely also have good areas of grass or built land available, and institutions in cluster 2 have good areas of built and grass. On the other hand, institutions in cluster 1 have low availability of non-built land, which does place a limit on the opportunities directly available to them.
Opportunities: opportunities for different land use clusters
We now use an assumptions-based approach to explore what various degrees of uptake of these opportunities across the sector might mean in terms of impact.
Firstly, the opportunity for built environment: renewable energy generation. We assume that wind generation will by and large not be suitable for built sites, which leaves solar as the viable opportunity here. Solar installations are additional, and do not interfere with the existing use of the relevant buildings or area. There is therefore little or no opportunity cost for using this space – notwithstanding the constraints regarding which sites are suitable.
We model how much energy could be generated if various proportions of the sector’s built estate was fitted with solar power installations. Built area across the UK HE estate covers 3,796.8 ha. Our assumptions here are:
- We assume that 50% of this area is buildings and 50% is built surface such as car parks, paved roads and paths etc.
- We assume a general 1,000 kilowatt-hours per kilowatt-peak per year (kWh/kWp/year) of solar irradiance (the mean irradiance of data across our sites is 992 kWh/kWp/year).
- On the ground, it is feasible to install 1,000 kWp of solar PV per hectare, while on buildings only around 10% of this is feasible (100 kWp). With these assumptions, it is possible to produce around 1,000 mega-watt hours (MWh) per hectare per year from ground installations and around 100 MWh per hectare per year from roof installations.
- If 100% of built ground space (1,898.4 ha) was installed with solar energy installations, this could produce an estimated 1,898,420 MWh per year; and if 100% of roof space (1,898.4 ha) was installed with solar, this could produce an estimated 189,842 MWh per year.
- If the whole built surface was installed with solar PV therefore, this could generate around 2,088,262 MWh per year – equating to 29.2% of the total 7,155,816 MWh energy use for 2022/23 reported by the 135 reporting institutions in the EMR.
- With 2024 emissions factors for UK grid carbon intensity (including both generation and transmission & distribution), this would equate to a carbon abatement of around 470,000 tCO2e per year (for reference this is around one third or 33.1% of the 1,419,112 tCO2e total scope 1 and 2 emissions reported in the 2022/23 EMR).
- Although economics of electricity production, transmission and consumption are highly dynamic, if we assume a unit cost of £0.20p per kWh, an energy saving of this magnitude would equate to around £420 million across the sector annually.
In reality, many constraints around site feasibility for different buildings and locations mean it would not be possible to put 100% of theoretically available built land to solar generation.
Here we model what those figures might look like if it were feasible to convert 10%, 25% or 50% of built ground and roof space to solar power generation.
Opportunities: potential for solar energy generation on built land
While 100% deployment is clearly not feasible, we would consider if a sector target of around 25% might be achievable[12], which could generate an estimated 522,066 MWh per year, with equivalent reduction in energy costs (~£105m) and carbon emissions (117,500 tCO2e).
As a reference point, this would exceed by over 100 times the total energy exported to the grid (4,552 MWh) as reported in the 2022/23 HESA Estates Management Record, and constitutes around 7% of the sector’s total energy consumption (reported as 7,155,816 MWh for 135 institutions) in the same year.
Second, we consider the opportunities for grassland: renewable energy generation and afforestation. This is more complex as both solar and wind might be feasible, and installation of renewables would generally be mutually exclusive with afforestation, and in many cases with the current land use.
Grassland across the UK HE estate covers 1,893.6 ha. We set out our assumptions around potential opportunities here.
Solar energy:
- As before, we assume 1,000 kWh/kWp/year of solar irradiance (close to the mean irradiance of data across our sites).
- On the ground, it is feasible to install 1,000 kWp of solar PV per hectare. We assume that solar installations with the above density and irradiance can produce around 1,000 MWh per hectare per year.
- If 100% of grassland was put to solar (if this were feasible), this could generate around 1,893,600 MWh per year.
- With 2024 emissions factors for UK grid carbon intensity, this would equate to a carbon abatement of around 426,000 tCO2e per year (slightly less than one third of total scope 1 and 2 emissions reported in the 2022/23 EMR).
- Again assuming a unit cost of £0.20p per kWh, the energy saved could equate to roughly £380 million across the sector per year.
Again, it would not realistically be feasible to put 100% of the available grassland to solar power generation. Here we model what those figures might look like if it were feasible to convert 10%, 25% or 50% of land to solar power generation.
Opportunities: potential for solar energy generation on grassland
Wind energy:
- We assume 75 watts per square meter (w/m2) yearly power potential: the mean yearly power potential across our sites is 75.92 w/m2 at 10m height above ground.
- For most of the sites in question, only smaller installations of around 10-20m height and turbine diameters of around 5m would be feasible. For such installations, it is possible to install around 8 turbines per hectare on flat, unobstructed land (roughly 35m spacing between turbines).
- If 100% of grassland was put to wind (if it were feasible), this could generate around 199,200 MWh per year. With 2024 emissions factors for UK grid carbon intensity, this would equate to a carbon saving of 45,000 tCO2e per year (around 3% of total scope 1 and 2 emissions reported in the 2022/23 EMR).
- Again assuming the same unit costs, this would equate to around a potential for saving around £40 million across the sector on an annual basis.
Here we model what those figures might look like if it were feasible to convert 5%, 10%, 25% or 50% of land to wind power generation.
Opportunities: potential for wind energy generation on grassland
Afforestation:
- For afforestation with natural forest cover in the UK (temperate mixed forest), a net carbon drawdown of 3 tCO2e per hectare per year can be expected for the first 40 years.
- If 100% of grassland was afforested (if it were feasible), this could sequester 5,709 tCO2e per year.
In reality, foresting even 25% of the existing grassland that is theoretically feasible for repurposing would probably be ambitious. Within these confines, there would be further questions around suitability of individual sites for the opportunities examined, subject to the constraints we have discussed as well as others. As discussed, repurposing of large areas of current grassland on university estates would involve some opportunity costs, as it would remove the relevant land area from availability for other uses.
Opportunities: potential for carbon sequestration from afforestation
There is also an opportunity cost differential between the opportunities themselves. While renewables installations in theory generate sufficient energy to displace more carbon than afforestation, afforestation carries benefits for local biodiversity, ecosystems and natural capital – which would all be appropriately valued in truly holistic decision-making.
There may be a case for institutions to have conversations at the sector level around collective ambition for this area and thinking about what could be achieved through a coordinated approach. While the costs of setting up renewable installations are by no means negligible, the aggregate figures modelled here for energy and cost saving may make a useful contribution to a general business case.
Universities are also major players in their local economic and policy environments. As such, they have substantial opportunities to explore shared agendas with local partners around questions such energy networks, heating and cooling, landscape-level ecosystem approaches and models for sharing costs and risks around initiatives. Exploring these opportunities should be considered part of institutions’ civic role as anchors in their local ecosystems.
Connectivity with local and regional economic systems through infrastructure also offers opportunities around education and skills, supporting local training and job creative; as well as ecosystems for applied research, industry partnership and knowledge exchange – linking these opportunities directly into universities’ core activities and mission.
Many institutions across the country are exploring or have already put in renewable energy installations. Here we present some examples that we have brought together through desk research.
The examples, even with the small number, demonstrate a range of approaches the different institutions have taken. Some, but not all, of the examples relate to installations on core estates. Links for further information are included in the footnote[13].
On the ground examples of renewable energy initiatives
Notes and references
[1] The Royal Society. 2023. Multifunctional landscapes: Informing a long-term vision for managing the UK’s land.
[2] See Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). 2025. Land Use Consultation; House of Lords Land Use in England Committee. 2022. Making the most out of England’s land.
[3] See Dooley, K. et al. 2022. The Land Gap Report 2022.
[4] Due to time constraints, we have not been able to consider opportunities related to restoration/improvement of the quality of existing land use, urban green infrastructure/nature-based solutions, or questions around the proximity of energy generation to demand for energy, which conditions the feasibility of selling energy to the grid and its price.
[5] See for example Stid, J. T. et al. 2025. Impacts of agrisolar co-location on the food–energy–water nexus and economic security, Nature Sustainability.
[6] See for example IPCC. 2006. Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories. Volume 4 Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use.
[7] There are over 800 terrestrial ecoregions globally, grouped into 14 habitat types. See https://www.worldwildlife.org/publications/terrestrial-ecoregions-of-the-world.
[8] See for example Bell, G. et al. 2020. Tree Suitability Modelling – Planting Opportunities for Sessile Oak and Sitka Spruce in Wales in a Changing Climate.
[9] For a detailed overview of the site classification criteria, see: The Research Agency of the Forestry Commission. 2011. Ecological Site Classification. For detailed localised modelling of factors for land-based carbon flux, see: Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ). 2024. Mapping greenhouse gas emissions & removals for the land use, land-use change & forestry sector.
[10] WWF. https://www.worldwildlife.org/publications/terrestrial-ecoregions-of-the-world.
[11] See https://www.eauc.org.uk/university_and_college_land_for_carbon.
[12] There are precedents for this. France’s Loi n° 2023-175 du 10 mars 2023 relative à l’accélération de la production d’énergies renouvelables targets 50% of roof coverage for new and renovated buildings by 2027, although it should be borne in mind that such targets are easier for new buildings than retrofit.
[13] https://www.keele.ac.uk/estates/projects/recentlycompletedprojects/environmentalprojects/renewableenergypark/; https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/sustainability/action/energy-and-carbon/; https://www.jesus.cam.ac.uk/articles/birds-eye-view-new-solar-panels; https://sustainability.ed.ac.uk/news/2020/solar-farm; https://www.exeter.ac.uk/about/vision/capitalstrategy/featuredprojects/duryardsolar/; https://www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/university-of-manchester-powers-up-brand-new-solar-farm-delivering-clean-energy-to-campus/; https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/sustainability/carbonmanagement/renewables.aspx; https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/students-and-family/sustainability/sustainable-campus-and-construction; https://sheffield.ac.uk/sustainability/energy; https://news.st-andrews.ac.uk/archive/rooftop-renewables-plan-for-scotlands-oldest-and-sunniest-university/.
