Green Gown Awards 2017 - University of Leicester - Highly Commended

Leicester: Talkin’ bout our evolution

Sustainability at Leicester has evolved from little more than an add-on, an unpopular paid-for app, to a welcomed integrated software system that delivers efficient solutions across the university from campus to curriculum.

No longer just the domain of the hippies or Estates department - sustainability has been embedded into university life using some very future-focussed thinking resulting in us opening the largest Passivhaus building in the UK and adopting some innovative, resource efficient working practices.

It took a while to update, but now we’ve downloaded it’s hard to imagine life without this sustainability operating system!

Top 3 learnings:

1 Have a long term, overarching vision and plan – try to avoid ‘initiative overload’ and be consistent with your message.

2 Use the enthusiasm and interest of students to create momentum within your organisation.

3 Be ambitious – the most innovative (wacky!) ideas are often the ones that stick so don’t be afraid to step outside of normal ‘corporate’ thinking.

CO2t savings 2016/2017: 3,600 (Actual)

CO2t savings 2017/2018: 4,000 (Estimated)