Sustainability
Sustainability
As a university, we wish to develop our staff, students and partners to allow everyone to grow and Thrive. We are committed to the principles of Sustainable Development. Our success in reducing our carbon emissions is one of our key performance indicators and is part of how we measure our success.
We follow the definition outlined in the Brundtland report ‘meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’ There are three key pillars of sustainable development:
Using resources ethically and fairly to ensure that we can develop as we need to but refrain from damaging the environment and biodiversity.
Our actions should always have a positive impact and consider not only the immediate area & impacts but our wider impacts over the long term.
We should be a force for good through our actions, in the University, our local community, and through the global impact of our supply chains & partnerships. Everyone we impact should be treated with fairness, respect, and dignity. Our actions should go beyond ensuring those we work with can meet present and future needs, we should offer opportunities for growth and development regardless of background or circumstances.
Ensuring that the University is in a healthy financial position with enough funds to grow and to be financially secure.
While ensuring that our partners and suppliers are paid fairly and those we work with across our entire supply chain are paid & treated fairly and share in our growth opportunities.
As a core concept, sustainability is having respect for others, be that people, organisms, or the environment and having the integrity to do the right thing.
We believe that every decision we make and every project we do should have a positive impact on economic sustainability, social sustainability, and environmental sustainability. To assist this, we will adopt a systems approach that considers sustainability issues as a group of interrelated, interdisciplinary issues. Improvements to one area will often lead to improvements in other areas.
BNU is a signatory to the , a network of institutions and businesses that make the world a better, fairer place by supporting and contributing to the SDGs. Our progress is reported annually via EAUC.
We have incorporated the 17 UN SDGs into 10 Sustainability Strategy Areas.
- Governance
- Biodiversity
- Energy
- Decarbonisation
- Waste
- Water
- Procurement
- Transport
- EDI, Health and Well-being
- Education
Partnerships are the golden thread that runs through every one of the Strategic Areas. Our Civic Engagement Strategy sets our approach to social sustainability and how BNU aspires to be a good neighbour and partner.
Responsibilities and Staff
The University Executive Team (UET) are responsible for our success against our carbon emissions and wider sustainability. Our Chief Financial Officer has overall responsibility with support from our Director of Estates & Facilities, and Justin Bootland, the Head of Sustainability.
UET receive updates on our sustainability and carbon reduction works through presentations and reports, such as our Race to Zero Report. We also present updates to the Senate and University Council to inform our decision-makers and allow open discussion. Both groups include student and staff representatives.
Our Sustainability Committee meets throughout the year to discuss and shape our sustainability efforts. The committee is chaired by our Vice-Chancellor and includes representatives from our student body and the Student Union. Two seats on the Committee are dedicated to our academic staff, and a further two seats to our professional services staff. These seats are open to all staff and decided through open elections.
Everyone has a responsibility to do the right thing. To help empower our staff to build sustainability into our day-to-day activities we have designed and implemented a Sustainability Impact Assessment which must be completed for all capital projects and new policies.
We set out several key principles that the Sustainability Impact Assessment had to follow:
- Light touch, any assessment should take less than half an hour
- Quantifiable and scored with a pass/fail element
- The data should be useful and something we can report
- It can be used to consider any change
- The assessment should consider every element of our Sustainability Strategy
- Few changes will impact all areas, users should not be penalised for a change that is limited in scope
- No in-depth sustainability knowledge, or number crunching required
To allow us to block potentially harmful projects we have implemented a Pass/Fail assessment. This is simply an automated function that works out if the change will have a positive impact overall. If the change can’t achieve a positive score, then we must find a way to mitigate the negative and enhance the positive impacts.
Environmental Management System
We are in the process of implementing the Eco Campus Environmental Management System based on ISO 14001. An Environmental Management System (EMS) is a formal system of processes to ensure organisations identify, manage, monitor, and control environmental risk through good practices. These systems are audited internally and externally and we aspire to achieve full ISO 14001 accreditation. The performance of our EMS is monitored by the Sustainability Committee.
Engagement
Our efforts to be more sustainable are introduced to all new staff as part of the staff induction, an example of which can be found below. Staff are encouraged to suggest sustainability topics that matter to them and propose new sustainability ideas.
Education for Sustainable Development
We are integrating (ESD) into our taught activities, as part of our efforts to be more sustainable and our Sustainability Strategy. 2023-2024 marked the first time we included ESD in the Postgraduate Certificate of Academic Practice for all new academic staff. Our Head of Sustainability delivered this session in May 2024.
To further understand the opportunities for improvement we are auditing our courses to determine which modules cover sustainability topics. These are mapped against the . Notable examples of modules that include Living Lab skills for ESD include:
School of Business and Law
- Environmental Social Responsibility
- Strategic Sustainable Leadership
- EDI and Global Citizenship: Promoting Inclusivity Worldwide, and Global Business
School of Art, Design and Performance
- Science and Materials for Designers
- Industry Skills in Sustainability
- Sustainable Design & Technology
Sustainable Food
The sustainability of the food and drink we serve is one of the most visible ways we can have a positive impact. We are proud to work with a caterer who has achieved 3* certification from the Sustainable Restaurant Association. To help improve the sustainability of our food and drink offering we recently introduced free refills of flavoured still and sparkling water in our catering outlets. Beeches, our new eatery offers crockery and cutlery. Vegware is provided for all takeaway food and hot drinks. Any food waste is collected and sent for composting.
Further information on our sustainability ambitions and how we translate these into action can be found within our Sustainability and Civic Engagement Strategies, as well as our Race to Zero and Nature Positive Universities Pledge reports.
Recent Environmental and Sustainability news stories
