HCUK Handbook: Chemistry departments are driving the shift to more sustainable research

A new handbook we have published with Heads of Chemistry UK (HCUK) brings together the experience of heads of schools of chemistry across the UK and Ireland, sharing practical approaches that are already making a difference and can be adapted by departments in their own contexts.

Environmental Sustainability: Heads of Chemistry UK Handbook draws on interviews with heads of department, setting out how chemistry teams are reducing their environmental impact while supporting financial resilience, safety, and staff and student engagement. It offers a menu of practical options, covering both what departments can do and how heads of department can make progress in practice.

A unique scale for change

Environmental sustainability efforts in universities often focus on institutional strategies or individual labs. But this resource demonstrates how departments can leverage their intermediate scale to drive practical change – shaping behaviours, procurement and teaching while staying close to day-to-day practice.

The handbook highlights steps departments are already taking, including improving fume hood use, cutting water and energy consumption, sharing chemicals and equipment, and embedding sustainability into degree programmes.

Many of these actions also bring wider sustainability benefits, from lower costs and reduced waste to providing opportunities for staff and students.

Professor Jason Love

Professor Jason Love, Chair of HCUK and Head of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh, said: “Even though we are under significant financial constraints, we are still performing very strongly as a school… being realistic about what we can change and how we use our resources.”

He added: “We’ve managed to bring together many different perspectives on what sustainability means, and how chemistry departments can act on it, into something that is genuinely useful.”

The power of sharing what works

We worked closely with HCUK to develop the handbook and capture experience from a diverse range of institutions, helping departments share good practice and avoid duplicating effort.

HCUK is an independent body representing Heads of Chemistry across universities in the UK and Ireland, providing a collective voice for the discipline in higher education.

“Heads of chemistry told us they want to share good practice that reflects the realities of running departments – tight budgets, ageing infrastructure and competing priorities. This handbook brings that experience together and shows how leadership at departmental level can unlock practical change.”

Dr Deirdre Black, RSC Head of Science

She added: “Chemistry has a critical role to play in a more sustainable future, not only through research and its applications, but through how we operate our laboratories and train the next generation.”

Part of a wider effort

This work reflects growing expectations from funders, institutions, students and employers, including commitments linked to the Concordat for the Environmental Sustainability of Research and Innovation Practice.

It is also part of our wider Sustainable Laboratories work to help the chemical sciences community reduce its environmental impact and share best practice, which includes grants, guidance and tools to support greener lab practice.

You may also be interested in our digital open access book The Sustainability of Science, and our organisational Sustainability Strategy which sets out our plans to help the chemical sciences contribute to the UN SDGs.