Here at BU, we acknowledge that what we purchase and the waste we produce can have significant environmental, social and economic impacts. To reduce these impacts, we are committed to taking a sustainable approach to our purchasing activities. 

Everything has value, and the resources we class as ‘waste’ have value too. A net-zero world will limit waste of any kind and with material resources that means following circular economy principles and the waste hierarchy: re-think, reduce, reuse, recycle, in all we do from how we buy things to how we dispose of them. 

In 2021-22, we achieved a recycling rate of 70%. We strive to keep improving, which is why we were ranked 6th in the world and 4th in the UK for SDG12: Responsible Consumption and Production in the THE Impact Rankings 2023.

Moving forward, our target is to increase and maintain a recycling rate of 80% by 2030/31, and to reduce our non-construction and demolition/residential waste produced to 20kg/FTE.

Please do email the Sustainability Team at  if you have any questions about our waste management.