Now in their 11th year, the Green Gown Awards, recognise the exceptional sustainability initiatives being undertaken by universities and colleges across the UK. With sustainability moving up the agenda, the Awards have become established as the most prestigious recognition of best practice within the tertiary education sector.
We are delighted to present this year’s 85 finalists representing 51 institutions, with 16 Winners and 22 Highly Commended. Here they share their inspirational examples of sustainability best practice, together with some words of advice and encouragement on lessons learnt along the way when implementing their projects. We hope many will be inspired and motivated by these sustainability projects.
The winners were announced on 26 November at Brunel’s Old Station – The Passenger Shed – Bristol.
Groupe ESC Troyes and EPF engineers School launched the Master Innovation, Creation and Entrepreneurship in partnership with the Technopole de l'Aube in Champagne
The associative and extracurricular life of students is led by the Office for Students which brings together 16 associations and offers comprehensive support for students on...
For nearly 10 years, Telecom Bretagne has had a "step by step" approach that has proven very effective in terms of sustainable development and territorial roots
The Catholic Institute of Paris has set up a "disability governance" fully integrated into the strategy of the campus, whose guidelines are: "Serve, Train,...
Part of the ambition of the School of Ponts Paris Tech to "be the world reference for research, innovation and training in key areas of sustainable development", the...
The club DD "Vert'Vet" of ENVT contributing for several years to the realization of projects in favor of biodiversity (botany, aquatic, ornithological and...
Université Laval has been engaged since 2008 in a comprehensive approach to sustainable development, and has significant results: 38% of greenhouse gas emissions, 19% of water...
The "kitchen garden and feeder" in partnership with the city of Beauvais, Picardy DRAAF gives the ability to people in precarious situations to garden and cook from...
With “At Université Laval, I’m for SD!” Université Laval takes a structured, community-wide approach to sustainable development to get tangible, scalable results
The 2015 Green Gown Awards Winners’ Brochure which explores the journeys all these institutions have taken.
The Winners' Brochure for the International Green Gown Awards 2015 which brings together the finalists and winners of these Awards which are growing globally.
Six years in and the Green Gown Awards Australasia continue to grow! This year we had a record number of 43 finalists, representing 22 institutions, all vying for the most...
Lucy has just completed her second year of university, during this time she has demonstrated a great passion and commitment to sustainability in the JCU Community and Cairns...
Colin has collaboratively led the curriculum development processes at La Trobe to help embed sustainability across all undergraduate courses – an Australian first
Professor Grant Guilford is the current Vice Chancellor of Victoria University of Wellington. Since taking the role in February 2014 he has already made a significant impact in...
C15Hack was Australia’s biggest green innovation hackathon. 41 students worked in small teams to tackle 7 different challenges from across the campus and Melbourne city-wide
Greening RMIT is a student-run project dedicated to promoting sustainable food and gardening on campus. Through hands-on education and community building events, we hope to...
JCU’s innovative Green Bike Fleet program gives new love to abandoned or unwanted bikes. The program has restored over 260 bikes, which are then sold to students.
Creating Sustainable Futures commenced as an interdisciplinary unit on climate change, it has evolved into a process for, as well as product of, Education for Sustainability (EfS)
The key output from this project is a set of inspiring yet workable standards for tertiary sustainability education that articulate what constitutes essential learning for...
USC is a Water Refill Campus that provides bottle refill stations, fountains and water refill vending machines that dispense chilled and filtered water in place of selling...
The Furniture and Equipment Re-use Service offers a range of workstations, storage solutions, and other items for sale at a low cost, presenting a sustainable and economic...
The Sustainability Program has grown since 2006 to include initiatives across leadership and governance, facilities and operations, learning teaching and research, and...
La Trobe University ICT Department donated 40 sets of computer peripherals (monitors, keyboards and mice) to help Whittlesea Council roll out a project to build computers and...
Since 2007 Victoria University of Wellington has been reducing its carbon emissions. Stationary energy and transport were identified as target areas
University of Tasmania IMAS Building: more than just a building The IMAS building was constructed to provide a contemporary new home for the Institute for Marine and...
The GreenSkills Training Centre is an award-winning catalyst for change in the built environment. A training facility for students studying sustainability courses, it is the...
Australia’s fastest growing University of the last decade is now one of Australia’s most sustainable Universities
The Finalists’ Brochure is now available and will provide you with plenty of reading in the lead up to the ceremony itself!
Rosemary has gone beyond her core role around operational sustainability at London College of Fashion. She is the first person in the role and has quickly developed...
In the five years as Director of Sustainability Development at CCCU, Peter has been described, by an ex. colleague, as taking the institution from “zero to hero”...
Alex has embarked on a mission, to converge a place of flourishing learning with being an ‘Edible Campus’. With no formal pedagogical role, he is teaching staff and...
Dr Aled Jones is the inaugural Director of the Global Sustainability Institute (GSI) at Anglia Ruskin University. Over the past four years he has built the GSI from a good idea...
Nicola’s “green wins” since starting at Goldsmiths in September of 2012 include reaching the gold standard in Green Impact for the Estates & Facilities...
S-Lab Project Coordinator, King’s College London Martin Farley has helped pioneer innovative projects in a largely untapped area of sustainability - laboratories. To...
First in a new role at the University of Warwick, David has supported and championed projects, ideas and initiatives to improve the impact the University has on its environment
Director of Sustainability, University of Worcester Under Katy’s leadership the University of Worcester has developed and maintained an excellent performance profile,...
When Serena started working at the College in 2009, sustainability was not a core priority. Initially Serena concentrated her work on creating policies, plans and procedures to...
Student (Fine Art 2nd year) - Goldsmiths, University of London Margaret takes environmental conservation to heart. She is one of the more genuinely environmentally...
Whilst studying Buying and Merchandising at London College of Fashion, Charlotte created the first sustainability society and volunteered on textiles income generation projects...
Anja has been a one-girl volunteering legend at LSBU this year! She started off by becoming an LSBU Green Bean Society member and provided over 400 hours of volunteering time...
Vincent’s roll is to provide tools, solutions and the attitude to make his students and colleagues conscious of how much impact, as individuals and as groups we all create...
Sustainable Pedagogy incorporating 'social, economic, environmental and cultural' values, is central to Gwenllian’s role, in Higher Education; enabling students...
Luci believes that to stimulate genuine and lasting change people need to experience how their actions make a difference. Recognising that future leadership demands confident...
The Green + Blue Space is the Union´s hub for environmental engagement. Starting each semester with a buzzing home and kitchenware give away, it hosts a wide variety of...
A coalition of students, staff and local residents have come together under the Transition Town banner to undertake a range of sustainability projects tackling climate change...
By working in partnership with the Edinburgh University Students’ Association, the University wanted to achieve its vision of creating a culture and environment at the...
This HEFCE supported project demonstrates the capacity for students to contribute to transforming the city in which they are studying.
Cycling 4 All uses disabled student engagement as an entry point to sustainability using a social learning model.
For a very small financial input the UCLan Student Union Student Bursaries have had a far reaching and long term impact on sustainability here at UCLan, transforming packaging,...
Green Guild started in October 2013 encompassing a wide range of initiatives for embedding sustainability across the University community. Three interrelated themes of...
Edinburgh College has built up two thriving community gardens at opposite ends of the city of Edinburgh, and is also in the process of developing four community orchards
Learn Act Engage Create is the journey through which students are engaged in sustainability during their time at University of Bristol
London College of Fashion partnered with Cordwainers Community Garden and artist Zoe Burt to grow and manufacture an item of clothing entirely within London.
Since 2012, the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge has been developing LED lighting capable of growing a wide range of plants under controlled...
Creative Energy Homes: Low-Energy and Zero-Carbon Housing – a living test-site for energy efficient technologies A long-term development of seven “Creative Energy...
The £9.8M Centre for Global Eco-Innovation unites the expertise, resources and global contacts of Lancaster University, the University of Liverpool, and Inventya Limited, to...
An Inspired Education The Institute of Sustainable Practice, Innovation and Resource Effectiveness (INSPIRE) is a virtual institute, which provides a focus for sustainable...
In line with EfSD goals, the newly developed course Interactions with the Environment encouraged students to advocate for the world in light of the Anthropocen
The ‘Raising the Baseline’ project has taken a systematic, consultative and target-led approach to deliver a coherent and comprehensive offer of ESD across the...
Ten, cross disciplinary Discovery Themes have been developed to ensure all students from across the University have access to core knowledge and skills which underpin the Leeds...
South West Energy Centre (SWEC) is an award winning, unique facility providing advice, guidance and training to industry and consumers in all matters relating to the Low Carbon...
The Futures Initiative (FI) mission is to enhance academic staff knowledge, skills and experience in sustainability education to breed leadership in curriculum change
Through Professor Jeremy Sanders’ inspirational leadership, the University of Cambridge’s approach to embedding sustainability into the institution’s thinking,...
Dr Jane Davidson established INSPIRE in 2012 to lead a system-based approach throughout UWTSD to deliver educational pathways promoting learning, environmental and social...
Frances Corner has been Head of London College of Fashion since 2005. Throughout this time she has worked to embed the importance of using education to transform lives across...
Through the development of a sustainable framework, which supports both education and learning, the University has undertaken a number of pieces of work towards this,...
UAL is the first University to achieve Gold accreditation for the Soil Association’s ‘Food for Life’ certification scheme. This has challenged the University...
The University of Reading’s Making Beer Green Initiative is specifically focussed on improving the sustainability of its seven bar operations spread across seven sites.
Over the past academic year, the University of Brighton has focused its efforts on tackling food waste in campus restaurants.
Lancaster University leads the HE sector in respect of its integrated, cutting edge sustainable food projects such as ‘Edible Campus’. Together, Lancaster...
Aberystwyth University is one of only a handful of universities in the UK where 30 – 40% of food spend in the University’s cafes and outlets is either sourced locally or...
At UWTSD enabling people to connect with one another is central to our institutional mission to reinvent productivity and help staff and students make the most of every moment...
University of Reading was getting more and more waste toiletries from the guest bedrooms with no way of being able to recycle or give them away and this was known to be a...
Through implementing a comprehensive water management plan the University has reduced its water consumption by 20%; enough water to fully hydrate (8 glasses a day) our 30,000...
Laboratories are places where innovative research takes place and where global challenges are solved. But laboratories have a big environmental impact in terms of energy, water...
In the past decade, The University of Dundee has seen a lot of redevelopment taking place on campus. Green space has been created right at its heart with the new Campus Green, a...
With a 10 year construction programme about to start, UCL took a new approach to managing deliveries on its heavily constrained Bloomsbury campus
Helium is a non-renewable resource and is essential for the operation of MRI scanners and magnets supporting research into drug discovery to cure such diseases as...
The WaterHub on Emory University’s campus in Atlanta, Georgia is an on-site water recycling system, utilising ecological systems to reclaim wastewater for heating and...
Edinburgh College’s fleet of electric pool cars provide staff with a sustainable, low-carbon, low-cost transport option for intra-campus and other corporate travel.
The University of Brighton’s Green Growth Platform supports a thriving green sector in Sussex through a menu of 1-2-1 business support, innovation and R&D support,...
Enactus Nottingham is an initiative within The University of Nottingham where students are given a platform to create social enterprises focused around solving large economic,...
Actually bananas are not that bad when you consider their carbon footprint!
This project was designed to support students seeking careers with a sustainable focus. A series of events were run throughout the year to provide information about career options
CU Social Enterprise CIC is a social enterprise set up by Coventry University to help staff and students of Coventry University set up social enterprises of their own.
Sustainability is one of London College of Fashion’s core values and staff and students across the college, as well as external partners, have been inspired by...
Since 2008, the University’s holistic approach to environmental management has enabled staff and students to come together and deliver significant and quantifiable...
Since 2007 the university has been addressing sustainability across the whole institution; sustainability is cited in the Strategic Plan as a core value of the University.
Sustainability is about making changes and inspiring a new approach to the way we live in the world, use its resources and interact with the rest of the ecosystem.
In order to bring all of Durham University’s environmental initiatives and activities together, the name and concept of ‘Greenspace’ was devised in 2010....
DESIGN+MAKE was a collaborative pilot project with the charity Art Against Knives. It engaged hard to reach young people (18-24) that were potential victims or perpetrators of...
The University of Leeds is responsive to the needs of its stakeholders and wider community. They asked the University to make a more positive impact on society
The sensitive and beautiful restoration of historic Drake’s Place Gardens and Reservoir, and development of related activities, has been undertaken with - rather than for...
This is a campaign that encourages students at the end of the year to donate their unwanted items - promoting a reuse ethos and creating lasting partnerships across...
The project undertook demonstrations of off-grid options using solar PV-based mini/ micro grid systems at four locations in India.
The University opened a new energy centre hosting two ultra-efficient CHP engines to nearly double its self-generated electricity and heat
In 2014/15 investments of £2.1m have covered a range of technologies and buildings, including plant replacement (boilers and chillers), lighting upgrades including main campus...
Keeping Oxford Brookes University moving is a daily challenge. With 2,800 staff and 18,500 students, Brookes needs a clean, green and sustainable means of getting people between...
A 43% reduction in carbon emissions was achieved since 2009/10. This has resulted in a cost saving of £1,513,250 and carbon savings of 5,771 tonnes.