Nikhef’s ambition is: climate neutral in 2030.
This ambition is detailed in our roadmap: Sustainable Nikhef Roadmap.
The development rests on five pillars: Travel, Energy – Building, Waste, Behaviour / Attitude and Primary Process – (astro)particle physics.
The priorities were chosen based on the 2019 CO2 footprint analysis. Nikhef commissions a footprint analysis every year. Below are the results from 2019 through 2023.
In 2019, Nikhef employees still traveled frequently by plane, causing 758 tons of CO2 equivalent. In the corona years 2020 and 2021, there was much less travel due to lockdowns and travel restrictions. By 2022, the restrictions had been largely lifted, but CO2 emissions were still only 263 tons, a third of the emissions from flying in 2019. Read the news item (8 June 2023).
In 2023, we see a growing shift from air travel to more train travel. With the current new policy around train travel within Nikhef that went into effect in April 2024, we hope this shift will become even more significant in the 2024 footprint analysis. With the commissioning of the renovated building in Amsterdam, which reuses heat from the data centre, we see a decrease in the use of gas in 2023.
Contact persons sustainability at Nikhef