Green Impact Students’ Unions Excellence
Project Update
Name of students’ union: University of Leicester Students’ Union
Strand chosen: Education for Sustainable Development
1.0 Summary (up to 300 words)
During the second term our main focus has been increasing ‘buy in’ from both Students and Staff for
the project, and this has so far been going well. Our main targeting of students was during Go
Green Week, where we ran a week long campaign focused around Education for Sustainable
Development. In order to make this campaign interactive, and increase student buy in on the issue,
we ran a photo campaign, where students could ‘graduate’ in a degree from sustainability. The
campaign was more successful than we had anticipated, with over 160 students being
photographed, and over 500 signing our petition calling on the University to place more focused on
‘integrating sustainability into curriculums and campus life.’
We have also been working with staff, and the Students Union alongside a number of supportive
academics led a session at a staff conference in January. In this workshop we outlined the concept
of ESD, what Leicester was currently doing with regards to ESD, and how they can get involved,
namely by coming to our ESD forums. After the presentation we broke out into groups where the
academics could discuss different areas of ESD, such as integrating it into the curriculum to
extracurricular opportunities for ESD. We invited academics who attended this session to attend our
future ESD Forums, and it was been great that some have taken up this opportunity.
The next focus on the project is working with the University, both high level and through
departments, to get a firm commitment to ESD from departments and senior management, which is
update outlines in more details.
2.0 KPI Delivery Update (up to 200 words)
Department’s promotion of Sustainable Futures module in the 2013/14 Academic Year
So far we have not made any progress with this KPI, as we have not presented our final strategy to
the Academic Policy Committee. Once we have presented this strategy, we will then work with
departments individually to encourage them to advertise the modules to their students. We hope to
have at least 6 departments doing this by October.
Increase in Sustainable Futures uptake in the Second Semester
Unfortunately we did not reach our target of doubling the number of students taking up the module
in the second semester. Although the Students’ Union did some promotion, the sign up took place
before the start of term and so it was very difficult to engage with students. We also had an issue
with some of the departments getting the information out to students. It is clear that in the future
departments and the SU need to work together more to co-ordinate engaging students with the
module and increasing sign up.
3.0Stakeholder Engagement Update (up to 200 words)
Our main improvement with stakeholder
engagement is with Students. The photo and
signature petition we ran over Go Green Week
really engaged students with what we’re doing,
and the importance of ESD. This engagement
has given the project a lot of momentum, and
we can use the support from students to better
demonstrate our argument to the Academic
Policy Committee Once we have our strategy
accepted by the University we will relate this
back to our Students, keeping them informed
of the progress, ensuring that they are aware
the of the changes we have been able to make
thanks to their contribution.
Our engagement with other institutions has
also improved, and we’ve been working with
Birmingham Guild, sharing ideas on our ESD
projects. We hope once we have some more
concrete results we are able to share our work
with other institutions for them to implement
more ESD work on their campuses.
Our Environment Volunteers encouraging
students to sign the ESD Petition
We have also been seen improved the University staff and Environment team, most notably through
our workshop at the staff conference (mentioned in ‘Summary’) and by running Go Green Week with
the Environment Team staff and volunteers.
4.0On-going Tasks (up to 400 words)
We have two main tasks left to do. Firstly, we need to draft up our final paper to present to the
Academic Policy Committee. Now we have measured student interest via our NUSSL lifestyle survey
(Green Gauge), and engaged students with the issue through Go Green Week, we are able to put all
our findings and research together. We hope that the considerations we make in the paper will be
adopted by the APC, which will allow us to move onto our second task.
Our second task is to engage with departments and to encourage them to support the Sustainable
Futures module next academic year. This will require arranging meetings with departments over the
Easter Break and in the Third Semester, demonstrating to them the benefits of ESD to their
students, and encouraging them to advertise the Sustainable Futures modules to their students in
the future. Our research will be key in order to demostrate the benefits to University departments,
showing not only the demand from students but also how ESD has been implemented by other
insitutions.
5.0Project Difficulties & Opportunities (up to 500)
Something which has pushed our timetable back has been collecting all the information for our
paper to present to the APC, as we have had more and more that we have wanted to include. For
example we never planned to make petition over Go Green Week part of the paper; however,
considering the excellent response we’ve had, it was clear that we should include it! This has
resulted in us pushing back the write up of the strategy until March. This delay however has
presented us with an opportunity to do more work around the project before making our final
presentation, and to lobby key University staff members such as the PVC Research before the
meeting, and is keen to support our strategy.
Another difficulty we faced was with the promotion of the Sustainable Futures module in the second
semester. As the deadline for registration was during Exam period, it was difficult to engage
students and increase sign ups. This has shown that in the future we need to promote the second
term modules at the end of the first term, and co-ordinate this more effectively with departments.
6.0Excellence Legacy (up to 500)
Ensuring the legacy of the project will be difficult, as the Students’ Union does not have a staff
member dedicated to the Green issues, and next year’s Officer will have little time continue it
alongside the handbook. Thus, it is important that we work with departments this academic year to
make sure the procedures are in place before the October.
If the University take our strategy on board, I hope that this will enable ESD issues to be promoted
more widely by the University, and the Students Union will have less of a role to play as this
develops. However, to ensure that this happens, we hope to use the ESD Forum to continue to raise
the issue with the University, and ensure the strategy we present is being carried out.
Although next year’s officer will be mainly focusing on the workbook, over the next few months I
hope to involve them with the project, so they can continue to work on it over the summer period
ensuring that departments are working towards promoting ESD to their students as per our
recommendations in the strategy.
7.0Special Awards Entries (up to 100 words)
We have entered the project for the HEA Education for Sustainable Development Award.
Some of the participants from our Photo Petition