Sustainability: addressing our environmental impacts

Climate change is one of the biggest threats to human health. We need to take urgent steps to prevent it from getting worse.

Our strategic Climate and Health programme is funding a transformation in the scale of research into the impacts of climate change on human health, and using the evidence that is generated to advocate for change.

Additionally, we are working to advance environmentally sustainable health research by integrating sustainability into our funding decisions and supporting researchers to reduce their environmental impact.

It is also important that we become a sustainable organisation ourselves – this is the focus of our sustainability programme.

Our sustainability programme is relevant to everything we do: from our approach to research funding and procurement to how we manage our buildings, business travel, events, data, technology and more.

We have two key areas of focus.

1. Reaching net zero carbon

Wellcome has committed to be net zero by 2030 for scope 1 and scope 2 emissions associated with our UK charitable activities. We are tackling these emissions first as these activities are where we have the most control.

Our carbon footprint is split across three broad areas:

Scope 1, direct emissions

These mostly result from our use of gas to heat space and water in our buildings. 

We are planning a net-zero retrofit of our main buildings, on Euston Road, London, to reach this target. We have appointed specialist consultants, Gardiner & Theobald, Purcell and Harley Haddow, to support this project. We expect building works to begin in 2027.

As an additional measure, we mitigate our scope 1 and business travel emissions by purchasing Gold Standards accredited carbon credits from the Sustainable Climate Impact Fund (SCIF). 

SCIF’s projects deliver clean and safe drinking water to local communities in Uganda, eliminating the need to burn firewood to boil drinking water which avoids carbon emissions. 

Easy access to clean water also improves community health and socioeconomic wellbeing, especially for women and girls. It does this by reducing waterborne diseases and allowing individuals to pursue their economic and educational ambitions.

Scope 2, indirect emissions

For Wellcome, this means the emissions associated with the electricity we purchase. 

We use a dual accounting approach for our scope 2 emissions, which reflects that our electricity is supplied through the national grid. As we buy our electricity from 100% renewable sources, such as wind and solar, we can also account for our electricity as zero emissions. Our retrofit project will aim to lower the amount of electricity we use.

Scope 3, other indirect emissions

This includes emissions associated with the goods and services we purchase, the research we fund, and our investments. We have set a target for the emissions associated with our investment portfolio to reach net zero by 2050 at the latest, and we publish annual updates on progress towards this.

We are currently calculating the scope 3 emissions associated with our charitable activities. This will help us understand where we can prioritise our efforts for maximum impact and develop targets for these areas.

2. Reducing our environmental impacts

Beyond carbon, we are also exploring ways to reduce our other environmental impacts through our ISO 14001 certified Environmental Management System. These include: 

• our use of resources, energy and water
• the waste we generate 
• our biodiversity impacts

We are further developing our approach to embed environmental considerations across what we do. In particular, our approach to business travel or the care of our Collections.

We are at an early stage of our sustainability journey, and our programme will continue to develop. Other areas of progress include:

Advancing environmentally sustainable research

• In 2024 we published new funding policy that outlines how researchers should address the environmental impact of their work. This coincided with the launch of an environmental sustainability concordat from UK research organisations. We also have signed the Heidelberg Agreement on Environmental Sustainability in Research Funding, which outlines how research funders should take a proactive approach to promoting sustainability in scientific research.
• There is currently no recognised methodology to measure research funded emissions, so we are exploring how to best tackle them, including how to support advancing environmentally sustainable health research.

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)

• In addition to a focus on environmental sustainability, we are developing a strategic approach to a broader set of Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) topics for the Wellcome group, which includes the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Leap, and our investment subsidiaries. 
• In 2023, we conducted a materiality assessment to prioritise the ESG topics we want to focus our efforts on, based on level of impact and risk. This informed the development of an ESG impact framework for Wellcome, which will be published in our 2024 Annual Report.

Our Sustainability team lead on programme delivery and are supported by an internal Sustainability Steering Group.