UCL commits to becoming a Nature Positive University

Image Description: UCL Researcher at UCL East People and Nature Lab. Photographer: Aude Vuilliomenet

Announced to coincide with World Biodiversity Day on 22nd May, the commitment is part of UCL’s Sustainability Plan 2025–2035. It strengthens the university’s existing Wild UCL campaign and focuses on protecting and enhancing nature across UCL’s estate and beyond, including through informed decisions about the products and services we buy and what we sell on our campuses.

Responding to the biodiversity crisis

The biodiversity crisis – also known as the ecological emergency – refers to the widespread, human-driven decline of populations, species, habitats and ecosystems. This loss threatens the natural systems that society relies on, including those that provide clean air and water, support food production in oceans, forests and agricultural land, enable pollination and decomposition and strengthen resilience to climate change.

By committing to the Nature Positive University pledge, UCL is formally recognising that protecting biodiversity is essential not only for nature itself, but for human health, wellbeing and a stable and just future.

What the pledge means for UCL

The Nature Positive University initiative was established through a partnership between the University of Oxford and the UN Environment Programme and launched at COP15 in 2022. To date, 184 universities across 6 continents have signed up, including more than 30 UK institutions such as the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Manchester and King’s College London.

As a signatory, UCL is committing to:

• Develop a biodiversity baseline across its campuses, assessing species and habitats
• Understand and measure its global biodiversity impact, including impacts linked to procurement and supply chains
• Set SMART targets to improve biodiversity outcomes
• Report publicly on progress each year via our Annual Sustainability Reports
• Establish a Biodiversity Working Group to steer this approach

These commitments directly support goals already set out in the Sustainability Plan 2025–2035, including baselining biodiversity by 2027, achieving a 20% Biodiversity Net Gain by 2034 and addressing UCL’s global biodiversity impacts from 2027 onwards.

Campuses as living laboratories

UCL’s commitment builds on extensive work already underway to enhance biodiversity across its campuses. Projects forming part of the Wild UCL campaign include habitat creation, biodiversity monitoring and nature‑positive landscape management.

This is particularly visible in areas such as Gordon Street, where the pedestrianisation project is creating a connected corridor of green spaces, new trees and planting, a green wall on the Christopher Ingold Building and links to nearby green roofs and Gordon Square.

These initiatives position UCL campuses as living laboratories, where research, teaching and operational practice come together to benefit both nature and people, as well as to inform staff, students and visitors about the importance of biodiversity, and to support them in making nature-positive decisions.

At an institutional level, UCL’s nature-positive commitment recognises the scale of its global impact. The university spends over £900 million each year through its supply chain, with associated effects on biodiversity far beyond its campuses. Understanding and addressing these impacts is a key priority, alongside efforts to reduce UCL’s carbon footprint.

World-leading research and wider influence

UCL researchers are leading efforts to understand how biodiversity is changing at a global scale, while exploring how large institutions can reduce their ecological footprint. Their work uses cutting-edge methods to monitor nature, including air and freshwater DNA techniques, citizen science approaches that broaden participation in data collection, and fundamental research to understand how biodiversity increases the resilience and productivity of ecosystems in the face of human impacts. Alongside this, UCL academics are examining the wider drivers of biodiversity loss, including consumption patterns, food systems and global supply chains.

Across the university, students can engage with biodiversity through diverse opportunities. For example, the Greening Cities module explores how urban environments can integrate nature-based solutions. Students can also gain hands-on experience through courses at UCL’s field station on Blakeney Point in Norfolk and the Mullard Space Science Laboratory in Surrey.

UCL’s Grant Museum of Zoology brings biodiversity and conservation to life for both the university community and wider audiences, showcasing UCL research through exhibitions such as the recent World of Wasps display.

By bringing together this breadth of expertise, UCL is increasingly embedding biodiversity into its own decision-making.

Kate Jones, Professor of Ecology and Biodiversity, and Director of the People and Nature Lab, said: “This commitment reflects the leadership UCL’s biodiversity academics have shown in shaping the university’s response to the ecological emergency. Through the sustainability strategy working group, researchers from across disciplines have helped drive a shared vision for becoming a Nature Positive University – one that applies world-leading evidence to our own campuses, decision-making and global impact. By embedding biodiversity into strategy, operations and culture, UCL is demonstrating how universities can be active contributors in global nature recovery.’’

Tim Newbold, Professor of Conversation Ecology at the Centre for Biodiversity and Environmental Research (CBER) said: "UCL’s operations, including the food served on campus, rely on vast global supply chains that have significant impacts on biodiversity, including in tropical ecosystems where biodiversity is most abundant, and crucial for climate stability. By making more informed and responsible sourcing decisions, building on research being conducted across UCL, we have an important opportunity to reduce harm and contribute to the protection and recovery of nature."

Get involved:

UCL is inviting staff and students to actively shape this work and support its next steps. You can:

• Express your interest in joining a UCL biodiversity working group.
• Explore nearby nature spaces around UCL. 
• Take part in Green Impact and complete biodiversity criteria. 
• Consider and discuss the food choices you make on campus. 

For more information:

• Learn about efforts to bend the curve of biodiversity loss at UCL.
• Explore UCL’s Centre for Biodiversity and Environmental Research.
• Discover UCL’s People and Nature Lab. 
• Visit the UCL Grant Museum of Zoology. 
• Read how UCL research connects biodiversity with food security policy. 
• Read about the Nature Positive Universities pledge. 

References for further reading:

• Read research on biodiversity and food systems in Nature Food. 
• Explore UCL Bartlett research on UK food imports. 
• Review a Nature Communications study on biodiversity impacts.
• Read an open research article on biodiversity and health links.