We conducted an audit to determine to what extent the current approach and initiatives of Hasselt University are sufficient or not to put the university on track to achieve climate neutrality by 2040. The focus of the audit was on the university's real estate.

The process consisted of two parts:

In the first part, an audit was carried out at organizational level. We map out what the current situation is, where we want to go and how we are going to do that.

Themes were discussed such as: formulation of the sustainability ambition with regard to climate and energy, translation of this ambition into your own vision, internal communication of the vision, practical follow-up of the vision, financing methods, tender forms, vision regarding. use of materials, circularity, energy efficiency,…

In the second part, a concrete proposal for a patrimony strategy was developed to achieve a carbon-neutral building stock by 2050 at the latest.

All real estate at Hasselt University was examined at a strategic level. A proposed investment trajectory has been developed for each UH building between now and 2050 ('technical timeline'). By aggregating all these technical timelines for the entire portfolio, one gains insight into:

• The decrease in CO2 emissions from the entire building stock over time can be used to assess this evolution against the proposed ambition.

• The price tag to make these investments possible.

Finally, a detailed action plan was drawn up in 3 priority buildings containing meaningful climate measures with the most important (financial) parameters: description, size, investment cost, savings and financial return (payback period, IRR, etc.). Based on this action plan, the University can take the first concrete steps.