The hottest summer on record in the UK has highlighted that extreme weather has the potential to disrupt university estates, teaching and learning, core business and campus health.
A recent report by higher education consultancy SUMS Consulting that mapped the risk posed to the core estates of UK universities estimates that there could be as much as £166.8 million in loss and damage to universities’ infrastructure each year as events like severe storms, floods, heatwaves, wildfires and droughts become more frequent.
As global temperatures rise, the complex challenges climate-related hazards pose for higher education institutions could require adaptations to safeguard the long-term resilience of estate, infrastructure, and operations.
A governor at a university in middle England which is located on a flood plain, said the risk of flooding was included in estate planning and that a new development on campus was being designed and engineered to mitigate that risk.
“The town we serve is in the flood plain and some areas experience high water levels and things like road closures during storms,” she said. “So it is on our radar, even if it is not necessarily tied to discussions like ‘ok, the climate is changing so we should be putting in place considerations across the piece’.”
According to this governor, the estate and environmental committee is the main locus of planning for climate event resilience: “It would come up at board level when estates are talking about new developments, capital grants and risk,” she added.
The governor observed that it seemed ironic that over this summer’s hot weather, fellow governors “all moaned about the heat at the board meeting” and asked if the air conditioning (aircon) was on “but no one actually questioned where is this going in the future if we have hotter summers”.
She predicts that such conversations will become more frequent: “We have ad hoc committees that keep popping up that we are drawn into task and finish groups. I could see a world in which one of those could take this issue head on,” she said.
Considerations may have to extend beyond the impact of extreme weather/climate change on campus. According to the UK Universities Climate Network (UUCN), adaptation plans should look beyond the physical footprint of the university to include neighbouring communities and critical infrastructure, transnational educational, international research collaborations, field work and international supply chains.
While day-to-day concerns about rising temperatures are operational matters and most student and many staff are not on campus at the hottest time of the year, more general governance concerns such as duty of care, health and safety and reputational considerations are likely to increase as hotter weather becomes the norm.
A governor who works at a University in London said robust discussions about air conditioning use had arisen this summer.
“They decided over the summer to turn off the air conditioning at the weekend to save money,” she said. “I thought that was reasonable enough because people generally aren’t here in August and it was the weekends. But a few people said they come in at weekends and they complained about it. On the hottest days we had, colleagues were coming into the office more often to escape the heat.”
In institutions with a mix of newly renovated offices and older buildings, some areas may have aircon while others don’t.
“The labs will be air con and temp regulated and perhaps some newer buildings but not everywhere,” said a board member. “We need to be cautious about creating a workforce divide. You’ll have people who work in the canteen who work in 40 degrees all year round saying ‘well nobody cares about us’ or arts and humanities academics saying they can’t go into the classroom because it is too hot.”
The example highlights potential tensions. Aircon is one solution but it could throw up equity issues and significant costs, both financially and in its impact on net zero targets.
The investment required to retrofit older buildings to install aircon or better temperature control is considerable. The ability of institutions to adapt is hampered by financial constraints, with estate teams already facing large backlogs.
“No one has any money for these kinds of projects,” said one governor, “especially when there are already cut backs to essential day to day maintenance of buildings.”
In some instances, however, funding streams might be available to tackle environmental issues. Universities in areas prone to flooding have worked closely with local and regional authorities to ensure investment in flood defence systems and sustainable drainage systems.
In London record temperatures have prompted Mayoral funding for tree planting and green space creation across the capital and the drafting ofa Heat Risk Delivery Plan.
Universities have been involved in “rewilding” and “passive cooling” efforts, targeting the urban heat island effect, where central zones temperatures can spike up to 8 degrees centigrade hotter than surrounding rural areas.
New capital infrastructure projects are actively integrating climate resilience—including heat mitigation strategies—into their architectural and structural designs.
Day to day measures aimed at preventing students and staff from overheating include “cooling stations” giving out free water and ice, and signposting students to buildings on and off campus with aircon.
“London is a particular case with the heat,” said a governor in the capital. “We have hotter temperature generally and dealing with that is an issue for institutions, but we also have more people, including staff and students, living in flats with no gardens and in multiple occupancy.”
British universities are also involved in funding bids to the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change. Three UK regions so far have received Pathways2Resilience (P2R) funding to bring together local and regional authorities to strengthen their preparedness for increasingly severe climate impacts.
Planning for climate events and building institutional adaptability and resilience is seen by governors as part of their wider sustainability, climate action and net zero responsibilities.
For instance, heat pumps, which many universities are installing with the help of funding from the Department for Energy and Net Zero, not only reduce operating costs and improve energy and water efficiency, they also have a cooling effect in the immediate vicinity.
“While we are all talking about high and rising temperatures after the summer, there is also the flip side – in very bad winters freezing temperatures can be an issue as well,” says a governor from an English university. “The issue then becomes how you heat a building, how much you heat it, which ones you heat and how to keep the cost and carbon cost down?”
Anything that has implications for net zero targets does reach the desks of governors, she said. But she also warned that at a time when the focus is on financial health, other priorities can slip.
“We take sustainability really seriously, so we do have those conversations — although I do detect that even that is falling down the agenda slightly since the whole cost of living crisis,” she said. “We are aware that at this very moment it is more a nice to have than a need to have.”
Another governor at an institution in the south of England reported that conversations about sustainability at his institution have yet to evolve into discussions about the impact of extreme weather on university life.
“We have a sustainability strategy of course and members of the executive often mention climate change but I don’t ever recall the impact of extreme weather on campus being discussed as a topic,” he said.
Other institutions are further along the path. A number have drawn up dedicated climate adaptation and resilience plans, dovetailing with broader net zero strategies. This twin-tracked approach to climate mitigation and resilience recognises that protecting against climate risks while also trying to reduce climate change are interconnected.
Plans typically look at infrastructure vulnerability in the medium term, focusing on physical defences and operational adjustments against climate hazards like flooding, severe heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, poor air quality, storm surges and supply chain disruptions.
These plans could be an indication that the sector is increasingly treating climate adaptation and resilience as corporate risks rather than isolated sustainability projects.
Last month, the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges published an updated climate risk register guide and tool, in collaboration with Adaptation Scotland, a Scottish Government funded programme providing advice and support on building resilience to the effects of climate change.
A Scottish governor said climate adaptability and resilience featured on her institution’s risk register as part of asset management: “I can’t remember discussions as a whole court but any concerns would come through the audit and risk Committee,” she said.
These committees are using risk matrix to calculate the likelihood and consequences of climate-related hazards and the measures that could be taken to counteract them.
Advice from various sector bodies involved in climate action and sustainability is to approach resilience building as an ongoing, open-ended process requiring regular monitoring and evaluation.
Institutions also have an important, wider role to play in building resilience to climate beyond their own operations, in local communities, regional economies and beyond. A plethora of UK research institutes are carrying out world-class research on climate change and environmental adaptation and resilience which evaluate, for instance, the impact of investment in UK flood defences and explore economic opportunities that might arise from investing in climate resilience.
