Case Study: University of Birmingham achieves 20% carbon reduction and becomes the world’s first smart campus with Enlighted

Digital sensor and analytics technologies create world’s first smart campus

The University of Birmingham, a globally ranked research university with about 38,000 students, sought to modernize its Edgbaston and Dubai campuses and meet ambitious sustainability targets, including net-zero by 2035. Facing more than 52,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually, the university needed to cut energy use, lower carbon emissions, and create a data-rich “smart campus” to support teaching and research.

The university completed a full LED lighting retrofit and deployed 23,000 Enlighted IoT sensors integrated with occupancy-based lighting and HVAC controls, feeding data into an analytics platform to optimize space use and energy. The program helped achieve the university’s 2020 goal of a 20% emissions reduction and continues to reduce emissions by about 2,856 tons per year (~5%), while creating a living lab for research and a long-term partnership for wider campus digitization.

University of Birmingham

Trevor Payne

Director of Estates