The environmental management report is submitted to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and is a requirement of the Environmental Management in State Agencies Ordinance.
The report for 2022 was approved by the Vice-Chancellor on 14 February 2023. The following are a few interesting points contained in it:
- Energy consumption was nine percent lower in 2022 than in 2019.
- The climate impact of business travel was 44 percent lower in 2022 than in 2019. The principal reason for this was that travel was limited in the spring due to the pandemic.
- Digital meeting tools such as Zoom have continued to be used at a high level following the pandemic. Around half a million Zoom meetings were held in 2022 compared with barely ten thousand in 2019.
- The University is coordinating the national investment in open, online courses for developing skills related to the climate transition.
- Demand for long-distance international train journeys has increased, and the University has an agreement with a travel agency specialised in European train travel.
- The UPPMAX research infrastructure at the Ångström Laboratory started work on developing technology and processes to temporarily reduce power output by transitioning to battery power. This not only reduces the University’s power needs to the benefit of other activities in Uppsala, it also exercises the batteries.