It’s hard to ignore the pressing environmental challenges facing our world, from microplastics in our bloodstream, to biodiversity loss and our changing climate. Urgent action is required, but it’s often less clear what this means in practice at work.
Our University has committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2040 and we’re already making good progress. As a large, research-intensive University, we have the potential – and responsibility – to do so much more to make our world safer for future generations.
The upcoming climate and sustainability strategy will raise our ambition, including new objectives to leverage every school and department in response to the climate crisis.
This is our most ambitious plan to date! It requires a whole-institution approach to deliver. Every school and department needs to take action to embed sustainable practices.
Sustainability leadership
The good news is that we’re not starting from scratch. Since I joined the University I’ve seen some fantastic examples of sustainability leadership from colleagues across all parts of the University, including:
- The material re-use hub at Edinburgh College of Art
- Improving sustainable lab practices at the Queen’s Medical Research Institute
- The Big Dig from Sport & Exercise’s Active Lives programme
We shouldn’t forget that systemically embedding sustainability across our activities makes business sense too. As you read through the case studies below you’ll see the additional benefit these projects have delivered – whether it’s reducing resources or cutting costs by minimising unnecessary purchases.
What is the sustainability framework?
After working closely with pilot groups across all colleges and professional services, we’ve developed a sustainability framework that allows schools and departments to create bespoke sustainability action plans.
The framework has been translated to a digital tool, which automatically generates action plans for teams so they can report on progress.
What areas are covered in the framework?
We identified six themes, aligned with the University’s sustainability commitments, for each team to explore and evaluate. Schools and departments can select which themes they feel are most relevant to them:
- Leadership & Governance
- Student Experience & Curriculum
- Research & Partnerships
- Staff & Student Engagement
- Operations
- Community Engagement
Crafting a bespoke Sustainability Action Plan
But what does this mean for you and your team? Let’s break down what a sustainability action plan might look like in four simple steps.
Here’s how it works:
- Step 1: Each school or department nominates a senior sponsor and an action plan coordinator. They will be given access to the sustainability framework digital tool.
- Step 2: The senior sponsor and coordinator provide key information about their School or Department so the tool can develop relevant and specific impact statements.
- Step 3: Explore relevant sustainability themes and identify key impacts for your School or Department. The impacts you select will be used to suggest activities for your action plan.
- Step 4: Tailor your action plan and capture your activity and progress. The tool will prepare an action plan for your consideration with links to supporting resources to help you manage, mitigate or maximise the impacts you identified. You can also rank actions by priority.
What’s next?
We launched the framework to schools in October, and every school and professional services department is encouraged to participate in order to develop their own plan.
If you want to find out more about the framework or see if your school or department is participating, please visit the Sustainability framework webpage:
Related links
Improving sustainable lab practices at QMRI
Embedding sustainability in the curriculum at the School of Maths