BSc (Hons) Sustainable Built Environment

Our BSc (Hons) Sustainable Built Environment degree is delivered by the team behind our award-winning Centre for Advanced Timber Technology (CATT), which reflects the transformative potential of timber to meet the challenges and opportunities for a more sustainable built environment. 

• Benefit from our sustainably built Skylon Campus in the heart of Hereford’s Enterprise Zone. This future-driven campus includes the most advanced and sustainable design and construction methods available. 
• Understand the practical and conceptual reasons that lead to unsustainable practice in the built environment, and develop the knowledge and skills needed to make change happen across the construction lifecycle, from culture to demolition and disposal. 
• Be equipped to be a change agent in the mainstream built environment sector as well as having all the foundations to add value to sustainability-focused organisations – you’ll be able to contextualise and apply timber knowledge within a wide range of both traditional and sustainable materials. 
• Enjoy challenge-led learning – hands-on with real-world problems that offer the opportunity to contrast and evaluate different materials choices and construction practices.  
• Practically learn to navigate and add value to contemporary building practice. 
• Gain extensive knowledge through consistent industrial and community engagement with an industry placement.
• Receive support, whenever needed - 1:1 support through your allocated Personal Tutor, access to the Academic Skills and Knowhow Centre, and Student Services.  
• The optional Foundation Year has been designed for those who don’t meet the entry requirements of the degree. On successful completion, students will be able to progress directly onto year one of the degree. 

Your degree 

Work on real-world challenges at every stage of your learning, connecting with employers of varying sizes and from a multitude of sectors including construction, building design and sustainable futures. Our partners will enrich your learning ten-fold, nurturing practical expertise and knowledge through training, providing real-world challenges for you to work on; providing resources and hosting student projects. You can be confident that your learning will reflect industry needs; you’ll also build an extensive professional network while you’re here.  

Your work placement 

You’ll benefit from a period of work placement with one of our partners – this will be invaluable experience for you as you prepare to launch your career.  

Your career 

Embodying our commitment to sustainable development, this degree will enable you to directly enter the workplace as a building and construction professional in the building design and construction industry, or in consulting, local government, or NGOs. You may also wish to pursue further postgraduate qualifications, including various MSc pathways. 

We welcome applications from students from all backgrounds. 

BSc (Hons) Sustainable Built Environment

• Either: 112-128 UCAS points or equivalent 
• Or: evidence of prior learning through alternative employment and education pathways
• GCSE Maths and English should be Grade 5 or above. 
• Students whose first language is not English are required to have IELTS grade 7 with a minimum of 6.5 in each component or an alternative qualification. 

BEng (Hons) Sustainable Built Environment with Foundation Year 

• Either: two A-levels in any subject and at any pass grade (or equivalent qualifications such as a BTEC National Diploma or Level 3 Apprenticeship) 
• Or: demonstrable experience, interest in and flair for your chosen subject
• GCSE English and Maths at Grade 4 or above
• Students must be at least 18 years of age by the time the course begins 
• Students whose first language is not English should evidence IELTS grade 6.5, with a minimum of 6.0 in each component or an alternative acceptable qualification

Discover more about our admissions process via the link below.

Optional Foundation Year

If you didn’t get the A-level results you were hoping for, are thinking of a change in career, or if you did not follow traditional routes into higher education, then starting your studies with a foundation year may be the right choice for you. You'll develop the key transferable skills and subject-specific knowledge needed to continue into the full BSc degree. 

Level 4 

You’ll be introduced to the fundamentals of the built environment through a lens of sustainability, including materials, methods and technologies. In team-based, challenge-led learning, you’ll apply your developing skills to analyse standard problems in a multi- and inter-disciplinary way. Throughout Level 4, you’ll develop your independent learning capabilities together with effective collaboration and team-building skills. 

Level 5 

At Level 5, you’ll further deepen and apply your knowledge of the built environment to problems that focus more deeply on the construction lifecycle; you’ll integrate your knowledge and skills into the planning and managing of more complex projects – with the opportunity to propose alternative solutions to built environment challenges that benefit from sustainable applications. Half of Level 5 is spent in the work environment on a placement – you’ll experience real context and develop critical evaluation skills, applying your learning to workplace practices. 

Level 6 

By the end of Level 6, you should be a self-motivated, efficient, organised and independent learner, classically demonstrated through an independent enquiry - or design-led bachelor’s dissertation. The focus will be on developing a deeper, more nuanced understanding of context, and complex integrated challenges.

Learning timetable 

Learning takes place within the hours of 9-5, Monday-Friday. Your own time is just that, undisturbed for you to enjoy.

Academic calendar 

View term dates via the link below.

We believe that your assessment should be as reflective of a real workplace as possible and that means no traditional exams. Instead, our assessments take the form of a display of artefacts you’ve developed and built, industrial reports, development of specifications, test reports and project plans, creative media presentations, debates and general question-and-answer sessions where your participation and knowledge can be assessed. 

We developed our assessment techniques in collaboration with industry to help you build a portfolio of work that will live on with you long after graduation. 

• Creativity and Fundamental Engineering Skills - Explore the range of technical and non-technical skills required within engineering and technology including laws of physics, principles mathematics, and communication, collaboration and digital skills.  
• Engineered Structures and Mechanisms - Investigate different types of engineered objects and how they work. You'll carry out tests, and work with models of real structures and moving artefacts such as buildings and transport. 
• Engineering and Technology as Problem-solving - Develop your understanding of how engineering and technology fit within a wider societal context, through the solving of a systems-based problem that would pose real-world repercussions. Along the way, you'll further develop your skills in maths, modelling, producing graphs and using digital tools. 
• Engineering and Technology Project - Apply your learning across the year to an individual project, finding out about various engineering and technology disciplines and the roles they play in different industries and business sectors, and considering your own future career options. 

• Materials for the Built Environment - Explore materials used in the built environment – both inorganic and biogenic (including timber, steel and concrete). You'll be introduced to materials science, selection, and characterisation and learn how different materials have different environmental impacts.   
• Sustainability and Construction - Get to grips with the foundation of sustainability, its principles, and our professional responsibilities in the built environment. You'll learn about the built environment lifecycle, fundamental sources of sustainability outcomes, and commercial pressures at different points in the lifecycle.    
• Technologies for the Built Environment - Develop your understanding of simple construction technologies including building fabric and building services. You'll be introduced to some of the digital tools used in construction including CAD, BIM and monitoring technologies with an emphasis on the effective interpretation of digital data and the design of monitoring regimes that support environmental performance, health, safety and wellbeing.  
• Construction Methods - Here, through a focus on on-site planning and management, you'll become familiar with construction methods, the concept of the construction site and construction project management.  You'll understand multiple stakeholders and their competing expectations of performance and compliance. 

• Construction Applications - You'll integrate and extend your knowledge to date, by planning a relatively complex construction project such as a multi-storey building. Implicit in this will be site, process, materials, technology, commercial and KPI estimation and analysis and a detailed understanding of external constraints and compliance responsibilities.  
• Built Environment Lifecycle and Circular Economy - Here, you'll dive deeper into the lifecycle of buildings to consider maintenance and supply chains. You'll analyse the concept of zero-carbon building design, learn about obstacles to circularity and navigate and propose strategies to enhance circularity and environmental performance.  
• Industrial Placement - This is your opportunity to apply and deepen your knowledge and experience in a professional context. You'll work alongside built environment professionals and gain first-hand experience working in a construction environment with the associated requirements for health, safety and well-being, ethical practice, and professionalism. 

• Construction Project Management – You'll conceive, design and plan performance management plans that enable you to understand, monitor and communicate performance holistically in a multi-contractor environment. This will be linked to remediation action and change management. Along the way, you will critically appraise your own leadership skills, and develop strategies for adaptive leadership.    
• Regulatory Framework and Professional Practice in Construction - You'll gain a deeper, more critical engagement with the regulatory and professional context by designing and planning 'arms-length' assurance plans that enable you to be confident of regulatory performance and compliance in a multi-contractor environment. Along the way, you'll critically appraise your own ethical orientation and sense of professional integrity and communicate your own sense of vision for the UK construction industry based on prevailing trends, challenges and opportunities in the sector. 
• Digital Technologies for Retrofitting and Building Management - Here, you'll bring together perspectives on digital technologies for building management (including BMS) and retrofit challenges. You will specify a sensing and digitisation regime to monitor the performance of a building, and use this kind of data to identify retrofit opportunities that enhance environmental performance and durability. 
• Bachelor Built Environment Project - Identify an area of interest and undertake a sustained independent project. You'll undertake research into a contemporary issue that links construction and the built environment to sustainability and along the way will demonstrate your ability to select and apply suitable ethical frameworks and research methodologies. 

You’ll be supported fully throughout your time with us (and beyond as you become an NMITE Alumni).  Discover our network of student support and wellbeing services.

Tuition fees (2024 entry)

• UK students: £9,000 per year
• International students: £18,000 per year

Please visit our student finance page for information on tuition fees and student loans, as well as non-repayable grants, bursaries and scholarships, eligible to different groups, to support with study costs.

NMITE bursaries and scholarships

We know that going to university is a financial commitment. That is why we are dedicated to easing the financial burden for our students through our bursaries and scholarships. We have several financial awards available for future and existing students.

Our student accommodation is in the heart of Hereford city, a stone’s throw from our campuses. Rooms are fully furnished, en-suite and cleaned weekly. Connect instantly with new friends, joining a ready-made family of like-minded students.

Oh, and accommodation is guaranteed for all first-year students.