People and Planet

It’s all league tables at the moment and although they can be fickle it’s one way the outside world judges us and so it is very encouraging when we do well and it is important to celebrate this. My last blog highlighted how well we had done in the recent Stonewall’s Workplace Equality index.  Another area we’re making progress is in the People and Planet University League (formerly known as the Green League).  The league is a comprehensive and independent assessment of 151 UK universities ranked by their environmental and social impact on the world.  We finished 46^th this year, rising 39 places from 85^th when the league was last published in 2013.  As a research-intensive University with numerous old buildings we continue to face many environmental challenges but we are clearly making progress in this important area.  We were awarded a 2:1 overall with 100% score for environmental policy, audit and management and impact.  Our efforts have been recognised and we have achieved something to be proud of but we now need to take the next step and ensure that sustainable practices and principles become embedded in our culture.  There is still a lot of work to be done, by all of us. Our aspiration must be to become one of the greenest universities in the UK, one that sets the standard for other institutions and organisations.