How UK Biobank built a carbon reporting process it can stand behind.
Funder pressure, a complex footprint, and an unreliable methodology — to auditable data, a credible reduction plan, and a team that can run it without us.
Introducing UK Biobank
UK Biobank is one of the most significant scientific resources in the world — a registered charity headquartered in Stockport that manages and provides access to the world’s most comprehensive long-term dataset of genetic, biological and lifestyle information.
Around 200 staff operate across five UK sites, supporting hundreds of medical research programmes globally.
Accountability to funders sits at the centre of how UK Biobank operates. The Medical Research Council had been increasing pressure to formalise a sustainability strategy. The existing approach wasn’t going to survive that scrutiny.
The challenge
The data existed. The problem was that it wasn’t defensible to external stakeholders.Â
UK Biobank’s footprint is complex in ways that catch most organisations off-guard: liquid nitrogen and specialist refrigerants for long-term sample storage, clinical and offensive waste streams, global air freight for biological sample shipments, and the travel of 25,000 research participants included in scope.
Ross, the internal sustainability lead, was coordinating data across finance, HR, facilities and purchasing — but without a clear methodology or specialist guidance, the risk of misapplying a category or using the wrong emission factor was real.
They needed a sound process built from scratch, a Carbon Reduction Plan auditors could examine, and — longer term — the capability to run it themselves.
How Litmus helped
We started by working through every emissions category with Ross: what data existed, what needed estimating, what methodology applied to their specific operations.
From that, we built a complete, auditable GHG inventory covering two reporting periods.
Where data was partial, we documented the estimation approach so auditors could follow the trail. We also delivered a full Scope 3 Carbon Reduction Plan, SECR compliance outputs for both years, and built UK Biobank’s footprint inside our carbon reporting platform for ongoing reporting and target modelling.
In early 2026, UK Biobank commissioned Litmus to take a different role. We designed and are now delivering a structured training programme for their Health, Safety and Environment team — covering data collection, emissions factor selection, platform use, and evidence management.Â
The outcomes
UK Biobank now has two years of independently auditable carbon data, built to a methodology that is documented, consistent, and ready to be examined by funders and auditors.
The Carbon Reduction Plan is grounded in their actual footprint — not generic benchmarks — and the platform lets their team model the carbon impact of operational decisions before they’re made, not just after.
The training programme now underway marks a clear shift in the relationship. The target is October 2026 for the first internally produced emissions report. After that, Litmus moves to reviewer and verifier — ensuring quality and consistency without doing all the work.
Same standard. Less dependency. That was always the aim.
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