Tag: lands

SUMS Consulting will host a webinar from 11:00 to 12:00 on Thursday 22 January 2026. The webinar will include a walkthrough of the report and online tool, and panel discussion featuring Nick Hillman OBE (Director of HEPI). Register here.

This blog, kindly authored by Thomas Owen-Smith, Principal Consultant at SUMS Consulting, and William Phillips, Data Analyst at SUMS Consulting, is part of a three-part mini series on UK universities’ approaches to land use.

Today’s final blog in the series focuses on opportunities and value. You can find part one of this series, which introduces the work, here. Part two of this series, focusing on risk, is here.

The opportunity landscape

2025 sees many higher education institutions looking for innovative approaches to rebalance their profile of income and costs.

Universities’ estates might offer the potential to save hundreds of millions of pounds on energy costs through harnessing the sun and wind, as well as opportunities to play a role in the local and regional systems that will play an important role in the UK’s energy transition.

Local and regional connectivity through infrastructure also brings opportunities around education, skills and jobs, as well as applied research, industry partnership and knowledge exchange. These offer means for institutions to nourish relationships with their local communities, with positive impacts on public opinion and consent around universities’ legitimacy and the public goods they bring to society.

We have also explored opportunities around afforestation and the natural capital value of ecosystem services supplied by UK universities’ lands – which stands separate to the commercial land value. (And there are many additional opportunities which we did not have time to investigate in detail).

Again, many institutions have already taken steps (in some cases over many years) around the opportunities outlined. Our mapping of sector land use cannot pick up these existing examples, but we have referred to some accessible cases in the report.

We hope the insights of this work can help individual institutions which may not yet have engaged with these questions to understand their initial option space, opening the track to more detailed investigation; and support the higher education sector and policymakers to have more informed conversations about what these options may mean for decisions and guidance at the aggregate or whole-sector level.

We also refer to sector resources around topics such as carbon credits, improving biodiversity and reducing impacts on nature (the greatest of which, for universities, are typically through their supply chains).

Mapping opportunities and value

Using our mapping tool, institutions can explore the potential of their estates for solar and wind energy generation, as well as suitability for broadleaf forest growth.

These opportunities vary across the country according to latitude, topography, aspect and a range of local conditions and constraints. We used an assumptions-based approach, referring to sector-wide averages, to model the potential aggregate impacts of sector-wide uptake (noting that some institutions have already done this).

If 10% of universities’ built land were equipped with solar energy installations, this could generate an estimated 208,826 megawatt-hours (mWh) per year. This would equate to around 2.9% of the sector’s total energy usage in 2022/23 (as reported by 135 institutions in the Estates Management Record). Based on current commercial unit rates for energy, this could achieve an annual saving of around £42 million on energy bills. It would also abate in the region of 47,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) annually, representing around 3.3% of the sector’s reported scope 1 and 2 emissions in 2022/23.

If 10% of universities’ grassland was used for solar power generation, this could generate an estimated 189,360 mWh per year. This would achieve energy savings, financial savings and abatement of carbon emissions of a similar, slightly smaller magnitude than the estimates just above for built land.If the same percentage was used for wind generation, this could generate an estimated 19,920 mWh per year. This would achieve energy-saving, financial and carbon abatement benefits of roughly 10% the size of those set out for solar opportunities.

Using carbon flux factors extrapolated from the UK Natural Capital Accounts, we also estimated the annual carbon sequestration of the university sector’s (core) estate as 3,162 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) per year. If 10% of universities’ grasslands were put to forests, this could sequester an estimated 571 tCO2e per year of greenhouse gases over a 40-year period, increasing carbon drawdown by around 18% annually.

Although the potential carbon impacts would be smaller than those around renewable energy, afforestation would bring positive impacts for nature, biodiversity and the sector’s natural capital.

Our natural capital calculations are based on a value transfer approach, which extrapolates generalised national-level data (also from the UK Natural Capital Accounts) to a local area based on the assumed ecosystem services supplied by one unit of land (typically hectares).

We estimate the asset value of ecosystem services (including renewable electricity provisioning, water provisioning, air pollution regulating, greenhouse gas regulating, noise regulating, and recreation health benefits) provided by UK institutions’ lands at £248.5m. Of this, £147.4m (59.3%) is provided by built environment, £54.9m (22.1%) is provided by grass, £43.3m (17.5%) is provided by trees and £2.9m (1.2%) is provided by water. This is likely an underestimation.

Why this matters for universities

The way that we use land is a critical part of securing a sustainable future for the planet. In global terms, land use is a key driver of climate change and degradation of nature; but it can also be a solution to reversing these.

There already exist both regulatory and market-based frameworks which reflect various dimensions of the value of natural capital and ecosystem services.

Partially due to concerns around the credibility of commercial offsetting schemes, some universities have turned to approaches for carbon sequestration or “insetting” on their own lands, which allow for easier assurance and impact evaluation. We refer to some examples in the report.

While still emergent, these developments represent attempts to account for the true value of nature and the cost of destroying it (which traditional accounting and financial systems fail to do effectively) and may bring new economic opportunities around the stewardship of nature and natural resources.

Ultimately, everything depends on this.

Join HEPI tomorrow (Thursday 11 December 2025) from 10am to 11am for a webinar on how universities can strengthen the student voice in governance to mark the launch of our upcoming report, Rethinking the Student Voice. Sign up now to hear our speakers explore the key questions.

This blog, kindly authored by Thomas Owen-Smith, Principal Consultant, William Phillips, Data Analyst, and Pippa Wisbey, Consultant, all of at SUMS Consulting, is part of a three-part mini series on UK universities’ approaches to land use.

Today’s blog focuses on risks. You can find part one of this series, which introduces the work, here.

The risk landscape

Most readers will be familiar with the current conditions for the UK’s universities. Proximate financial risks – potentially existential for some institutions – understandably focus minds on the here and now.

Whatever system emerges from the current turmoil will need to be more resilient than what it replaces.

While the gathering risks in the economic and geopolitical theatre are familiar, on longer horizons – and let’s remember that many universities like to emphasise their longevity of foundation and core mission – the greatest risks are those stemming from the disruption to world’s climate and natural systems.

These risks are generally slow onset. Until they become acute, causing loss, damage and danger to human health and safety.

Solely the “physical” risks that we have modelled may cause hundreds of millions of pounds of loss and damage to universities each year (estimated at a potential £166.8m annually, based on moderate estimates), as extreme weather becomes more frequent.

These do not account for “transition risks” and “systemic risks”, which have less direct linkages to physical location and would manifest in disruption to their supply chains, national infrastructure and so on.

While impacts of extreme weather would likely be spread across multiple institutions, financial impacts of this order are material – particularly for those institutions which are most exposed.

Climate impacts might manifest not only in damage to buildings and other infrastructure, but also loss of valuable equipment and disruption to critical business – carrying further costs for institutions – and impacts on the health, wellbeing and safety of their staff and students. Insurance costs are also expected to rise, and in the most exposed cases, some assets may become uninsurable.

Securing future resilience is therefore very much a long-term game.

Mapping risks

Physical risksrelate most closely to the location (“exposure”) of assets. As hazards (storms, heatwaves and the like) become more frequent and more severe, loss, damage and costs increase – further exacerbated by institutions’ vulnerabilities.

Using our mapping tool, institutions can explore both observed patterns of temperature and rainfall at their location, and modelled patterns for 2C and 4C of global temperature rise – both plausible scenarios for the second half of this century.

They can also explore datasets containing granular local-level data around flood risk and heat islands. While these have not yet been modelled for future climate conditions, it is safe to assume that flooding and extreme heat events will become more frequent and more extreme, as winters become wetter and summers hotter and drier across most of the country.

Under current conditions, 197.5 hectares (ha), constituting 3.2% of mapped lands are at high or medium risk from flooding, while 4,102.1 ha (or 64.2%) are at high or medium risk of extreme heat stress.

The instances where floods or extreme heat risk incurring the greatest costs for institutions, is where their built estate is in high-risk areas. By our mapping, 92.1 ha (or 1.4%) of university estates are areas where high or medium flood risk coincides with built environment; and 2,898.6 ha (or 45.4%) are built environment with high or medium heat risk.

Of course, flood risk and heat islands are not totally independent variables from land cover. Built areas can exacerbate both flood risk by reducing the scope for water absorption, and heat islands due to their high retention of heat compared to non-built surfaces.

Responding and adapting to risks

Many institutions have already begun to respond to climate and environmental risks, and sector organisations have developed guidance on adaptation and resilience.

Those institutions that haven’t yet done so can use our mapping tool as an initial pointer to frame detailed site-specific risk and vulnerability assessments. Following UK Government guidance, we recommend using scenarios of 2C and 4C global temperature rise.

Better understanding of this picture for the specifics of university sites will also allow for options assessment around adaptation measures (including land-based approaches such as increased areas of non-built space or green infrastructure) to mitigate heat island effects; or if it is unavoidable, manage conditions of high heat through more cooling (which brings increased energy use).

The same stands for institutions that have a large built area in flood-prone zones. Understanding the current risk (which is likely to be on the radar already for many of these institutions) and how it might develop with the changing climate opens into exploring options for response. Nature-based solutions such as extending wetlands or porous ground surfaces can potentially mitigate flood risks in some areas. That said, institutions may wish to consider relocating valuable equipment, high-use areas or strategic activities if situated at the most risky sites.

While adaptation will carry upfront costs for institutions, national-level modelling indicates that the projected costs of loss and damage without adaptation will be substantially greater, and most adaptation measures have a high benefit to cost ratio if they are undertaken in good time.

In other words, spending sooner will save later.

The bigger picture

In the big picture, reducing the risks around increased exposure to physical hazards also underlines the necessity for every organisation to reduce its own impacts on climate change and nature loss – the ultimate drivers of the deteriorating risk environment.

In part 3 of this mini-series, we will explore opportunities that universities’ estates may offer to do that, some of which also offer other benefits to institutions’ financial position and core mission.

SUMS Consulting will host a webinar from 11:00 to 12:00 on Thursday 22 January 2026. The webinar will include a walkthrough of the report and online tool, and panel discussion featuring Nick Hillman OBE (Director of HEPI). Register here.

This blog, kindly authored by Thomas Owen-Smith, Principal Consultant at SUMS Consulting, and William Phillips, Data Analyst at SUMS Consulting, is part of a three-part mini series on UK universities’ approaches to land use.

Today’s blog introduces the work.

Where we are

With the economic and policy developments of the last 18 months, the UK’s higher education institutions now face a heady mix of acute challenges and an emergent agenda around the contributions they are expected to make towards the country, its economy and society.

The sector is already seeing mergers, amongst a range of potential measures to reduce costs. That a prominent recently merged institution is keeping its constituent campuses is not really surprising: for most universities, their mission and even shifting identities are still broadly bound up with their location.

Over recent years, this has spoken to agendas such as the Johnson government’s “levelling up” or institutions’ own civic commitments. And place remains prominent in the current government’s Modern Industrial Strategy, in which Mayoral Combined Authorities will be central actors in integrated regional planning for many areas, and of course in the Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper.

We know that universities are critical economic players nationally and regionally, due to their scale and the value created by their education, research and convening power.

We also know that universities cover a lot of space. A sense of this is reported in quant data terms each year in the (now voluntary) HESA Estates Management Record which, although it does not cover all providers, can be deployed for powerful analysis at the aggregate level.

How we use our land is a national question that cuts across a range of issues including economic development, food security and a healthy environment for people and nature, amongst many others.

These questions are about “where” as well as “how much”.

For university estates we have the numbers, but until now we have not had much of a sense of where certain things are, happen or could potentially happen.

We have sought to change that.

In our new report published today, we have used public and open-source datasets and methods to map the UK higher education sector for the first time.

Overlaying the boundaries for 174 institutions (those with data on Open Street Map) onto geospatial datasets (that is, datasets which contain a geographic or spatial component which brings the “where”) has allowed us to explore perspectives about universities’ estates and how they use them – which would not be possible without geospatial data.

The list of institutions, representing a mix of more traditional institutions reporting to HESA as well as some alternative providers, does not constitute the whole sector (or all of its known lands). But we believe the coverage is sufficient to allow for grounded discussion of sector patterns.

We explore the data over four strategic themes for institutions and at aggregate (sector) level:

1. State of the sector’s land
2. Risks
3. Opportunities
4. Value.

The report is accompanied by a mapping tool which allows user to explore these questions for themselves.

Purely in the direct financial terms we have modelled, “risks” and “opportunities” are to the tune of tens or hundreds of millions of pounds annually for the sector. And the wider dimensions of opportunities speak not only to universities’ contributions to environmental sustainability, but also to their role as critical players in regional economies and systems.

As such, this work has implications for a range of points in institutions’ thinking. These, of course, include approaches to risk, estates management, capital and strategic planning; but also core mission questions such as regional development, skills, innovation and industry partnership.

Over this series of blogs we will explore the strategic themes mentioned, starting today with the state of the sector’s land.

Due to the complexity of the topics involved, we have not been able to treat every risk and opportunity area in all the detail they deserve. But we do hope to inspire new ways of thinking about universities’ lands and locations and how these fit into their wider strategic context, including trade-offs and opportunity costs.

We also point to examples of institutions which are already engaging with these questions, to resources from sector organisations such as AUDE, EAUC and Nature Positive Universities, and to our own work supporting institutions across a range of topics relevant to this work.

State of the sector’s land

Our mapping of UK universities’ core estates covers a total area of 6,390.1 hectares (ha).

This does not cover the full extent of the HE estate due to limitations of the data available. (The 2023 HESA Estates Management Record reports a total of 7,293 ha “total grounds area” for 135 reporting institutions and a larger “total site area” – roughly the same size again – outside the core estate). But it does achieve more than 80% coverage of core estates.

While our mapped area constitutes just 0.026% of the UK’s land surface, it equates to a town the size of Guildford, Chesterfield or Stirling.

Of this area, 3,796.8 ha (nearly 60%) is built environment (buildings or artificial other surfaces), 1,893.6 ha (around 30%) is grass, 646.4 ha (around 10%) is covered by trees and 52.8 ha (a little less than 1%) is water and waterlogged land.

We also used machine learning to develop a typology of institutions based on their land use profiles. This identified three clusters of institutions, each of which stands out for possessing a higher proportion of one of the three core land use types (built, grass, trees) than the other two clusters.

• Cluster 1 (95 institutions, covering 1,205 ha) is highly urban, containing universities that are at least 80% and typically around 90% built land cover.
• Cluster 2 (60 institutions, covering 3,679 ha) is made up of universities with a relatively high grass cover (typically around 35%), still with a high built cover (around 58%).
• Cluster 3 (19 institutions, covering 1,506 ha) is comprised of universities that have a high proportion of non-built land (around 61%) and notably high tree cover (around 25%).

The various profiles of land use and institutions present different types of risks and opportunities, which we will explore over the coming days.

SUMS Consulting will host a webinar from 11:00 to 12:00 on Thursday 22 January 2026. The webinar will include a walkthrough of the report and online tool, and panel discussion featuring Nick Hillman OBE (Director of HEPI). Register here.