CERN Outlines 2030 Sustainability Roadmap as LHC Achieves Record Performance and Energy-Efficiency Milestones

Aerial view of CERN (Image: CERN)

(IN BRIEF) CERN’s fourth Environment Report presents the organization’s progress in making high-energy physics more environmentally responsible while detailing new sustainability goals set through 2030. Covering 2023 and 2024, the report highlights advances such as the LHC’s record integrated luminosity, the launch of an energy-efficient data centre with a targeted PUE of 1.1, and the achievement of ISO 50001 certification. CERN’s updated objectives include limiting electricity use during LHC Run 4, cutting CO₂-equivalent emissions by 50% compared with 2018, reducing water consumption, improving water quality, enhancing biodiversity, and strengthening waste and noise management. The report also outlines future scientific developments, including the High-Luminosity LHC and longer-term projects integrating sustainable technologies. CERN emphasizes its continued transition toward an ESG-aligned reporting model and its aim to serve as a benchmark for sustainable scientific research.

(PRESS RELEASE) GENEVA, 13-Nov-2025 — /EuropaWire/ — CERN has released its fourth Environment Report, outlining the organization’s continued progress toward sustainable scientific operations and presenting new environmental objectives that stretch through to 2030. The latest report, covering activities in 2023 and 2024, highlights how CERN is working to advance high-energy physics while steadily improving the environmental performance of its research infrastructure.

Among the notable developments during this period is the record-breaking integrated luminosity achieved by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a milestone that showcases the increasing energy efficiency of CERN’s accelerator complex when measured in terms of data produced per unit of energy consumed. CERN also inaugurated a highly energy-efficient data centre built with a target power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.1 and equipped with a heat-recovery system designed to repurpose waste heat. In parallel, the Organization obtained the ISO 50001 certification for its energy-management practices.

In 2024, CERN’s Enlarged Directorate approved an updated framework of environmental goals guiding the Organization through the end of the decade. Key commitments include limiting electricity consumption during Run 4 of the LHC to 1.5 TWh per year despite a substantial rise in scientific output, reducing direct CO₂-equivalent emissions by half compared with 2018 levels—supported by a 60% reduction in gas consumption—improving the quality of effluent water, increasing water retention and reducing overall water use, enhancing biodiversity on CERN sites, and reinforcing waste-management and noise-control strategies.

The report also outlines CERN’s upcoming scientific phases, including the transition to the High-Luminosity LHC, scheduled to begin operation in 2030. This upgraded facility represents an important step in CERN’s long-term commitment to more environmentally sustainable particle-physics research, providing opportunities to advance technologies such as superconductivity and two-quadrant power converters. Environmental considerations are also shaping the early planning stages of CERN’s next major research infrastructure currently under study.

“Science should not just address global challenges but should act locally,” said Benoît Delille, Head of the Occupational Health and Safety and Environmental Protection Unit. “Our scientific goals go hand in hand with our commitment to respecting the planet. CERN can and must continue to protect the world we all share while pushing back the frontiers of knowledge.”

By publishing this report, CERN reinforces its pledge to evolve toward a broad sustainability reporting approach that includes environmental, social and governance (ESG) dimensions, strengthening its ambition to be a leading example of sustainable research.

Read more: https://environmentreports.web.cern.ch/environment-report-2023-2024/

A pdf version is available at this link: https://doi.org/10.25325/CERN-Environment-2025-004

Media Contact:

For media requests only: +41 (0) 22 767 34 32 or +41 (0) 22 767 21 41
Email: press.office@cern.ch

SOURCE: CERN