Environment

We recognise our responsibility to protect the environment and we are committed to continually improving our environmental performance throughout our operations and supply chain.

As part of this commitment, this year we successfully renewed our certification ISO14001, the international standard for environmental management.

Our areas of focus include reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, sourcing our resources more sustainably and reducing waste and use of resources across our operations.

We are also empowering our people to support climate and sustainability in delivering our mission, with over 400 colleagues having now been certified as ‘Carbon Literate’ through the Carbon Literacy Project.

Action on greenhouse gases

Cambridge has made significant progress in reducing its carbon emissions and is on track to achieve its goal of reaching carbon zero on energy-related emissions by 2048, with an interim target of reducing emissions by 72 percent by 2030.

In 2024–25, we achieved a seventeen percent reduction in UK Scope 1 and 2 emissions, bringing our total reduction to 46 percent since our 2018–19 baseline, and keeping us on track to meet the 2030 target.

Our progress comes from the success of several carbon reduction projects, including:

Heat pumps installed at our DC10 warehouse and our Cass Centre to replace gas-fired heating

Solar array installed at the DC20 warehouse, and an expanded solar array on The Triangle building roof in Cambridge

Using artificial intelligence to analyse energy metering and identify inefficiencies

For more details, see our Carbon Emissions Report at cambridge.org/carbonemissionsreport.

The Academic group’s carbon reduction success

Our Academic group has made significant strides in reducing indirect emissions through strategic initiatives.

We have achieved 84 percent print-on-demand capability for newly-published titles and 89 percent for backlist publications.

This approach brings production physically closer to customers, reducing air freight volumes by 99 percent.

In journals publishing, we are transitioning to more sustainable print models. We are on track to meet targets for print-on-demand and digital journals to achieve a 70 percent reduction in print components six years ahead of schedule, with 65 percent of journals now having no print component.

“As an organisation very clearly committed to educating people on climate change and on the climate crisis, we need to practice what we preach.”

Peter Lumb, Head of Environment

Action on Greenhouse Gases – reduction of Scope 3 emissions

As a global publishing and assessment organisation, our greatest indirect impacts occur in the use of paper, print, global freight logistics, digital and technology-related activities and business travel.

To ensure we are taking the right action on these, we are strengthening our collection of data on ‘Scope 3’, or indirect carbon emissions. This will help us to set meaningful reduction targets which are effective in minimising our footprint. As we develop our data, we are taking action to reduce the footprint of producing and shipping our products, for instance by expanding print-on demand locations to help cut transportation-related emissions, and working with DHL on a sustainable aviation fuel trial for exam shipments.

Sustainable sourcing

Paper will have a necessary role in education and research for years to come. We are increasing the sustainability of the paper we use, and we are working hard to achieve 99 percent certified sustainable paper use and compliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation.

We also assess our supplier performance on sustainable sourcing and use platforms such as the Book Chain Project and EcoVadis to analyse their environmental credentials, human rights performance, and data handling approaches. We also use the Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA) audit tool to understand supplier labour standards, health and safety and ethics across their supply chain and to identify any modern slavery risks in supply chains.

Collaboration with industry bodies like the UK Publishers Association is essential to build a sector wide approach to tackling sustainability related risks and we partner with organisations such as MSDUK, the UK’s only advocacy organisation certifying ethnic minority businesses (EMBs), to identify and onboard ethnic minority businesses and improve the positive ripple effects of the printing and publishing industry.

Waste and resource reduction efforts

We are developing formal waste reduction targets and we have made progress in reducing waste across our assessment operations.

By converting art marking to a digital format in 2024, 4.5 tonnes of waste were avoided while enhanced waste segregation enabled the recycling of nine tonnes of plastic film in warehouses.

Paper usage was cut by 17 tonnes by reducing the amount of packaging used and through more efficient distribution of examination materials. We have made similar progress in our publishing operations by replacing 98 percent of our plastic print packaging with paper alternatives.

On a journey to reduce our environmental impact

Here’s a snapshot of Cambridge’s progress over the years.