Sustainability in Action Group
DRAFT Strategy 2015-2020 v6.0
For comment and revision
“Halting the destruction of the earth’s environment, helping people to free themselves from the shackles of poverty,
and leaving opportunities instead of debts to coming generations,
all of this involves nothing short of a fundamental change in our way of working and consuming.
All this is about ethics and culture, as it is about technologies, governance, participation and policies.
If there is one key issue that will help to get this transition done, science and education would be it. If there is one key issue that will help people to
emotionally understand the ups and downs of this transition,
1
art would be it.”
1
Bachmann, G (2008) Sustainability: a new frontier for the arts and cultures, available at https://sachakagan.wordpress.com/writings/
GSA’s Sustainability Strategy: Introduction
THIS IS DRAFT COPY & LAYOUT, WHICH WILL CHANGE TO FIT WITH GSA STRATEGY STYLES AS DEVELOPED AND
FEEDBACK FROM THE SiAG GROUP.
The Scottish Government has committed to addressing Climate Change and has set national targets which are not being met.
Pressure is growing for the public sector to support the Scottish carbon reduction targets of 42% by 2020 and 80% by 2050.
2015 sees the introduction of mandatory environmental reporting for the public sector and coming years are likely to see stricter
controls and monitoring of our operations, with the possibility of mandatory targets for carbon reduction.
What does this mean for the GSA in its role of educating future generations of architects, designers and artists? In 2012 Prof. Tim
Sharpe and SiAG explored the issues around environmental sustainability, and GSA’s effect on the environment. The effects of
climate change are well known and humankind’s causal link is established. We accept that our operations, and the future activities
of our students, contribute to that effect: We are able to take action, and morally, reputationally and legally obligated to address it.
We also need to adapt: examining our use of resources, how we invest in and change our estate helps us not only mitigate the
effects of climate change, but it also helps the GSA adapt to a changed World of more extreme weather which could include
disruption to our energy and water supplies, changing food supplies, damaged transport infrastructure, or access to all the
thousands of items we need to keep the GSA running smoothly.
We can make students more aware of sustainability issues through exhibiting best practice in our estates - reducing energy use,
generating our own power, using fewer resources & assessing product lifecycles. Our curricula influences the awareness and
philosophy of our graduating students – how they perceive and use resources, how they will design, build and make; often rising to
the top of their professions, our students will communicate and guide future generations within society making emotional sense of
changes in society, reconnecting us, our communities of practice and geographically, to nature. Our community needs to support
disruptive, innovative ideas to improve both our operations & support the future practice of our students – a kind of Creative
Sustainability: positive, action-led, and curriculum/research focused.
To achieve this, the GSA has to make sustainability relevant, to build trust with academics, professional service departments and
students. If it is not relevant, if it is too general, if there is no connection, then people and institution will not engage.
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Glasgow School of Art: Values based, driven by Creativity
As a society, we face seemingly overwhelming complex environmental, social, cultural, ethical, & technological challenges; we
dominate the Earth and its resources, show disrespect for nature and are building systems that actively destroy the planet’s
resources. Instinctively when threatened we react with egotistical short-term solutions to protect those we love – getting more
money, protecting ourselves with bigger cars and higher fences, and ignoring wider, community and longer-term issues.
By addressing core values and aligning them with the GSA’s values we can start to address these issues and provide a positive
response to the use of resources and its effect on the living planet. The GSA is a global leader in creative arts, and we need to
know that as an art school we can make a difference, equipping our graduating students to lead local and global change.
A recent report for university governors has highlighted the benefits of sustainable values and practices. Thinking and acting
sustainably has an obvious benefit in mitigating our effect on the environment, but it also means better overall management,
becoming more efficient and effective, and saving money.
It means considering issues in depth, seeking innovative solutions from all available angles and taking a longer-tem view. Most
actions mean cost-savings, more growth, enhanced adaptation, and resilience to change. It means reduced purchasing and
consideration of product lifecycles thereby reducing procurement and waste disposal costs; as an art school the more we can reuse the less we buy and waste.
It helps us meet and exceed government policy objectives. By 2020 new and renovated buildings will need to be zero-carbon;
meeting these targets early saves money over the long-term and makes us sector leaders, not chasers.
Sustainability enhances our research profile and contributes towards REF assessments, an enhanced student experience and a
deeper, more meaningful interaction, widening participation to all communities.
Sustainability also means healthy communities: better mental health through promoting yoga, mindfulness, work/life balance, active
travel and quiet spaces, with clear benefits reducing stress, absenteeism and raising productivity. In turn this attracts and retains
the best quality staff. For students grades improve, drop-outs reduce and feedback scores improve.
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Art as a Catalyst for Change
The “Artists using Resources in the Community” project (Jan 2014 – June 2015) has seen a major jump in awareness and action at
the GSA. ARC has now reported on 15 months of thinking, planning, interactions, & monitoring. ARC represents one of the major
steps we have taken in implanting sustainability into the GSA: the creation of SiAG and the all-staff meetings in 2009; the decision
to invest in a permanent Sustainability Coordinator post in 2013; the ARC project; and from 1 July 2015 Radial.
One of the most surprising things in modern society is the lack of action on environmental issues, pointing to a lack of emotional
connectedness to nature. We feel an instant reaction if something we like, or someone we love is threatened or abused, why not so
the Earth which is polluted, extracted, deforested, depleted and destroyed daily and so casually? Our emotional connection to
nature is broken by bad buildings, poor design and corporate marketing putting a barrier between us and reality. We struggle to
define and comfort ourselves through brands and things, we think we are richer but we lose what is important and that which
sustains us. We are confused, wilfully ignorant of the harm we do, and it is a road to self-destruction.
Art is widely accepted as a key catalyst to emotionally connect us. Key to SiAG’s work is how we design buildings, make and
communicate through art, how we influence tomorrow’s leaders and practitioners. Art can be research, contemporary and
prophetic, connecting us through emotion and experience to a subject matter, reconnecting to each other and our living planet. It
can help us make sense of the madness of consumption, and the rapid change we see around us.
Art can reconnect us to both the issues and our communities, help us question and challenge others’ actions and develop our
values. We can provide room for people to rethink the future and express these ideas through our practice.
SiAG, its students and staff, explores these visions of creative sustainability, linking us a changing World.
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2009- 2015: A Plan for the Whole of the Glasgow School of Art
We had a vision, which developed into our first GSA sustainability strategic plan.
The 2009 strategy had six sections; to paraphrase:
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Maintain a system and resources to deliver our work
Identify climate change challenges and risks and produce positive responses
Reduce our effect on the environment
Give our community the awareness, skills and support to take action
Promote research & knowledge exchange
Communicate this to our community and link to GSA strategy
We have reported on the 2009-15 strategy. In summary, the emphasis moved away from mapping curricula for sustainability to a
direct approach with students and lecturers to make the sustainable ethos relevant and interesting; by speaking the language of
practice we have opened up pathways into the GSA community, enriching the student experience.
What we feel worked well
What didn’t work so well
Student engagement, building trust with academics
Student led groups
Establishing relevancy within the curriculum
Campaigns, events and themed practice activity
Continued facilities upgrades by Estates
External funding, in particular ARC and cycle infrastructure
funding from Sustrans
Engagement through food
Engagement with Halls – a best practice example
Collaborating with GSA Student Association
Operational interactions with busy professional departments
Finding others to lead work/projects
Establishing whole-institution responsibility
Energy and water efficiency monitoring and reductions
Effective building control and monitoring
Attempts to map the curriculum
Generalised messages, campaigns and groups
Social Media – high Facebook likes but little interaction
Some stand-alone events
Setting SMART targets
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Sustainability at the Glasgow School of Art: A SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Weaknesses
A close fit with GSA values and aims
Strong SiAG group and community awareness
Senior management support
General willingness to engage across the GSA
Open working environment
A desire and corporate aim to disrupt and think new
Creative thinking
A well-resourced organisation
A strong research focus
Creative and innovative subjects and practice
Our student and staff community
Opportunities
Involvement, motivation and commitment is mixed
No shared responsibility for change
Lack of actual and perceived roles within job descriptions
Poor perception and awareness of issues and effects
Narrow focus on practice
Lack of identity and place within nature
Un-adopted plans including Carbon Mgt Plan and Green Travel
No SMART targets
Weak engagement across professional departments
Poor national and institutional policy and regulation means
involvement is down to personal choice
Threats
Richer curriculum and research
Students better equipped for work and change
Lead, inspire and retain staff
Better institution planning, in greater depth
More efficient, cost-effective estate operations
An enhanced student experience
Highlighting new career paths and practice
Influencing future making, building and creating
Reduced costs through energy, water and resource procurement
Resilience – energy generation, reducing reliance on fossil fuels
Less impact from travel
Going beyond Scottish, UK and EU government requirements
Being a sector and national leader on climate change
A chance to emotionally reconnect people to the issues
Assumption that being green reduces choice, increases costs
Apathy
Fear of change
Lack of motivation or incentives
Perceived personal powerlessness
Ego over Eco consciousness
Disconnection to nature
Distance from consequences
Short-term gains prioritised over long-term consequences
Marketing, mainstream media, throwaway culture
A rapidly redeveloping estate
A lack of responsibility, time or interest in developing targets or
reducing costs
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Key Partnerships
SiAG works across the GSA and beyond. We would like to highlight and thank the following partners:
Directors Dame Seona Reid and Prof. Tom Inns for visible, positive support, and Lorna Ramage
The ARC team – Eilidh Sinclair, Jenny Fraser, Kathy Beckett and Phillippa Claude for 15 months practical exploration
Prof. Tim Sharpe as convenor of SiAG, and SiAG members for their time and effort
Halls of Residence – Fiona Sloan and Katie Dixon leading the way in energy & water conservation, recycling and re-use
Student Association – practical and policy support across the board from Sam, Will, Rebecca and their colleagues
The Vic Bar for the food, and interactions with their menu
Estates Department – Dougie McKechnie, Barrie Stewart, Mike Quigley, Shona Donnelly, Agnes McGuire for the office space,
infrastructure improvements including cycle racks and energy & water saving initiatives
The cleaners and janitors, Robert McLean and Betty King, who engaged on food waste and who really make the place work…
WTMS – Austin, Dreena and their team, we can’t imagine a GSA without their positivity
Careers and Enterprise managers, making connections to broaden student opportunities
Library – promoting sustainability texts
Research, for support and ideas, in particular Maddy Slater, Ranjana Thapalyal and Colin Kirkpatrick
Learning and Teaching – for involvement in areas such as Studio+
HR – in supporting our team and for discussions on improving staff involvement and benefits
Sandi Galbraith for often instant and constant support and advice
Jo Tomlinson and Fiona Jones for administrative support
GSA Yoga and GSA Sport for developing support for students through extra-curricular activities
Academics like Kathy Li who have let us in to student projects
Technicians for their support and engagement in re-use
Finance – budget and support in running our programmes
Procurement – Michael McLaughlin for working with us on energy and waste issues
Union involvement with wellbeing issues
Registry – for support of the annual Degree Show Prize
Comms for their help in spreading the message, developing the newsletter, and keeping us straight on logos
Vic Boyd and the VLE team for marketing support and access to students and staff via the system
Exhibitions for their helpfulness in organising events like Go Green Week
All those students who applied for funding to expand their practice and horizons
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MEARU for the support of Rosalie Menon in working with ARC and Halls to improve room ventilation and energy use, and Lynette
Robinson and Anna Poston for their knowledge and inspiration
Neil McGuire for the website, and along with Jo Petty for Comm Des interactions
Jane Stickley-Woods, Justin Cater, Colin Kirkpatrick and Tim Sharpe for assessing SiAG funding applications
All the departments who have engaged through development of project briefs and talks to enhance the student experience
Everyone who volunteered their time
Students & staff like Angela Karpouzi and Karen Westland for being an inspiration to us
External
Climate Challenge Fund - £94,000 for the ARC team’s project, and support from staff Caro Kemp and Phil Nowotny; Sustrans – for
£7k cycling infrastructure funding; Zero Waste Scotland for £117k Radial funding
Creative Carbon Scotland – bringing sustainable creatives together
Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges for national and UK networking, conferences, events, support
EAUC Community Engagement Topic Support Network – as convenor we have led three meetings a year
Glasgow and the GUEST group, Napier, UofE, Strathclyde, UWS and Caledonian Universities for working with us
Glasgow Bike Station – Dr Bikes and the upcoming Uni-Cycle funding and events
APUC – the university purchasing organisation, developing sustainable procurement processes
Resource Efficient Scotland – for an estate survey of possible improvement
Exotic Excess Café – for the Lycra and free food
Fashion Revolution – promoting ethical clothing
Garnethill Community Council – Jane Sutherland and her council’s support for On the Verge event and community gardening
Patrick Harvie MSP for launching Go Green Week with us with Nicolas Oddy
The Project Café for catering On the Verge and feeding us when we needed it most
Playdead for their collaboration on the ARC project communications and video
Snook – inspiring workshops on communication
Glasgow Scrap Store – taking some of our excess stuff to be reused
EcoCampus – our environmental accreditors
Rachel Duckhouse, Satish Kumar, Jonathan Baxter, Alistair Mackintosh, Ellie Harrison, Nic Green and all our other inspirational
speakers
People and Planet for the Green League and the structure it gives our work
WARPit for creating a reuse culture in Scottish universities
Glasgow University’s Thereza Sales De Aguiar and her students where we gave talks and are developing research
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2015-2020 Approach
This second five-year strategy builds on the strategy written in 2009. Six years of SiAG meetings, two and a half years of
experience from the Sustainability Coordinator, 18 months of ARC, gathering the experiences and learning from the best practice of
others across the GSA, Scotland and the rUK means we have raised the profile of sustainability ideas at the GSA, and created new
ways of thinking.
Feeding into this strategy was a SiAG workshop in early 2015. Staff and students were consulted on GSA policies and creating
priorities for action.
Any future SIAG strategy must help inform, and align to, future GSA strategy content and timelines, and the timing, format and
approach of this strategy will integrate into GSA future planning.
Strategic themes will guide actions, SMART objectives and clear outcomes to be developed by the end of 2015.
The first plan laid the foundations; this second plan takes that experience and focuses on building trust, evidence-based change,
relevancy, implanting sustainability within the curriculum, strengthening our community engagement, and improving operations.
SiAG’s aim 2015-2020 is to:
Raise the awareness of the GSA community, taking action on climate change by
implanting a sustainability ethos within our operations, community and curriculum.
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Objectives 2015-2020
Objectives
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Make sustainability everyone’s role
Make it relevant for the GSA community
Engage our community by making them aware of the issues
Equip our community with the knowledge and skills to take action
Challenge the zeitgeist, disrupting the status quo through practice creation
Use resources in a considered and respectful way, connected to nature
Balance financial with environmental & social costs, a triple bottom line
Reduce environmental and financial operating costs
Monitor and report on key indicators
Represent, and be guided by, our community
Objectives to be reviewed and SMART targets to be set with departments and management by end of 2015.
Outcomes
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A reduced GSA carbon footprint
An enhanced student experience
Better and clearer careers and practice pathways
Better design, making and communication through our practice
Emotionally connect our community to the changes taking place
Connect and benefit our local practice and geographic communities
Protect and enhance academic freedoms
Reduce the environmental, social and financial costs of our operations
Improve our monitoring and reporting of our progress internally & externally
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Shared Values
Disruptive &
Challenging
Aware &
Knowledgable
Diverse &
Pluralistic
Glasgow School
of Art and
Sustainability
Responsible
&
Transparent
Efficient &
Effective
Ethical &
Moral
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2015-2020 Strategic Themes
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Theme > Key Actions*> Sustainability outcomes > GSA community outcomes > GSA institutional outcomes
Enhancing the student
experience
Project Briefs, group and
individual projects, SiAG
Degree Show Prize
Students make better use of
their degrees in more
sustainable ways
Better study, attributes,
outcomes and career
pathways and prospects
Drive growth, ELIR scores,
and institutional profile
Research
Knowledge exchange
Improved engagement and
communication of issues
Enhance REF themes.
Graduates better able to
respond to change
Enhanced Ref score, more
research income
Estate Redevelopment
Strategic and applied approaches
to efficient redesign and build
Better buildings that are
financially and environmentally
more efficient
Better buildings to study and
work in
Lower running costs, longer lifespan of buildings, enhanced
external profile
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Existing Estate
Enhanced control, monitoring of
consumption, reporting energy
and water use
Resource Use
More ethical and efficient
procurement & re-use, more
ethical banking and
investment
Meet ethical and moral
standards, purchase & waste
less
Lower costs for students,
enhanced learning
Reduced carbon footprint and
costs , enhanced ethical
profile
Wellbeing
Mindfulness , GSA Sport, yoga
, quiet spaces, Active travel,
improved indoor air quality,
natural light
Enhance the physcial and
mental health of our
community
Improved low-cost staff
benefits. Reduced levels of
student & staff stress,
absenteeism and drop-out
An inclusive, healthier more
equal community, attract and
keep best staff
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Better buildings that are
financially and environmentally
more efficient
More comfortable and efficient
buildings with buidling users in
control
Reduced CO2 in working spaces,
manage energy and water costs,
higher financial surplus
Engagement & Communication
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External links. Sustainability in all
job descriptions. Attend SSCCs,
work with Halls, GSASA &
departments, reporting
Communicating our vlaues across
the campus and wider
community
A more informed and supportive
staff and student community
Lead the sector. An informed and
involved academic, operational
and study body, better planning,
grow local partnerships
Key Business Benefits2 for the Glasgow School of Art
Sustainability is a corporate responsibility, increasingly backed up by legislation and regulation. It is a chance to not only lead, but
to be seen to be leaders, reducing costs and carbon emissions. The EAUC have identified key business benefits for integrating
sustainability themes into strategy, policies and actions.
The table below shows that by taking sustainability themes into all departments, risk can be lowered, cost savings identified and our
effect on the environment reduced.
To make this happen, sustainability ideals need to be implanted across all policies, not constrained to one sustainability policy.
Managers need to be incentivised, and staff and students need to be informed, involved and reported back to.
Acting sustainably needs to become not the special way of doing a few things outside of our normal operations and teaching, but
becoming part of, and enhancing, the usual way we carry out our activities.
By its nature, thinking sustainably helps protect academic freedoms as students and staff explore new ways of designing, building
and doing. Operationally, we become more resilient as an organisation, better able to respond to changes in government policy.
With government putting in place stronger and more rigid cost and environmental regulation, changing and adapting now protects
and strengthens the future stability of the Glasgow School of Art.
2
Based on the EAUC’s “A Business Guide for University Governors” www.sustainabilityexchange.ac.uk/a_business_guide_for_university_governors
Page 15 of 25
Business Benefit
Create Surplus and
Increase Investment
Potential
What
Adopting sustainability
measures leads to
increased surpluses
How
Adopt a Triple Bottom Line (social, environmental
and financial costs considered together)
Benefit
Have a better CSR
profile
A campus estates strategy, long-term focus
Attract new pots of
funding
Put sustainable objectives into our financial strategy
Higher sector profile
Bank & Invest ethically
Manage Costs
Reducing resource use,
waste and energy
Collaborate across the sector to innovate
Ensure staff can buy as easily re-used than new
Empower staff to come forward with ideas and
reward them
Create building user groups to tackle use, waste
and energy issues with the power to sort out
problems (not senior mgt. – empower others)
Follow sustainable construction best practice, aim
higher than the current standards, towards 2019
Greater financial
resilience
Reduce our carbon
footprint
Reduce financial
costs
Reduce externalised
social and ethical
costs
Real long-term
infrastructure savings
Refurbish to the highest standards possible
Instigate Soft-landings for campus builds,
refurbishments and existing buildings
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Audit the estate for renewable energy generation
Reduce energy budgets year-on-year
Employ a short-term part-time energy manager to
Buildings that are low
cost to run
Run buildings at
design cost levels
Minimise purchasing
by maximising reuse
optimise energy use
Make one estates manager responsible for energy
planning, improvements and monitoring
Build on local HEI groups to share resources
Allocate managers, buildings, departments their
energy budgets and report to them monthly
Allow Schools and departments to keep a
proportion of energy savings
Meet zero carbon
building standards
early
Generate energy
independently &
dependably
Offer cheaper energy
to neighbours
Connect capital and revenue budgets – spend now
to save later across the estate
Harmonise bins across the campus to maximise
recycling
Prioritise reuse storage areas
Monitor and report monthly on resources, disposal,
water and energy
Plan Ahead, Mitigate
Risk & Strengthen
Competitive Advantage
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Pre-empt global, UK,
national and local policy
change which can only
increase in priority and
compulsion
Evidence-based, CBA costed changes to the estate
to reduce longer-term revenue costs
Build into GSA’s Risk strategy and planning
Pre-empt and match
national targets
Write and adopt clear policies across areas that will
save money and carbon
Greater resilience
Set and monitor SMART objectives on all energy,
Lower risk
Risk – Strategic: lack of water, and resource use
adaption means
supplies run low,
Instruct and hold accountable managers across the
students and staff can’t
campus to actively promote objectives
travel, energy cuts, flood
Be risk aware, not risk averse to changing estate
Risk – Financial: costs
rise for energy or goods Understand, meet and exceed national regulation
and laws on areas such as building & pollution
Risk – Compliance: new
building codes and
Access Green funding such as Salix loans
obligations, including
reporting
Monitor pollution – water, soil and air
Risk – Reputational:
seen as unprepared/
illegal activities
Consider and place sustainability in a relevant and
useful way in all meetings – SSCCs to Board
Be eligible for green
focused grants and
cheap loans
Better infrastructure,
lower longer-term
costs
Control over energy
costs
Resilient to changes
in energy prices
Spend on students
not energy
Have building groups report to a powerful mid-stafflevel estates committee to empower staff
Drive Innovation &
Create Growth
Create learning
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Move through the EcoCampus (ISO14001)
programme and instigate the ISO50001 energy
management programme
Green businesses are
Encourage Disruptive Innovation at the GSA across
growing in the UK: being curricula and operations
green is big
Build on the MEARU model and have separate,
profitable resources focused on sustainable
creativity within the GSA, like Radial
Helps meet new REF
Make full use of internal expert resources
REF stipulates a focus on society, economy,
Doing things cleverer
Enhance the GSA’s
reputation for being
innovative in design,
architecture and art
Better REF score
resources for students,
research facilities for
staff
guidelines monitoring
how our work impacts
on society
culture, environment, health, quality of life – what
impacts can we have?
Attract and retain the
most talented staff
As a responsible and
innovative employer we
will attract the best staff
Adopt key new staff benefits
Staff must sit at the
centre of any
meaningful change
Promote good mental and physical health across all
policy
Start a staff well-being week led by unions and HR
Allow and support staff to make changes in their
work spaces
Better staff morale &
motivation
Run community reconnection workshops
Improve links and
relationships with
unions
Actively promote car-sharing and rail travel and
incentivise
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Cooperate not
impose on staff
Lower turnover & less
sickness
Ask staff how they can change processes and
procedures
Students want more
sustainability ethos in
their course and
Increase non-pay
benefits
Promote active travel and incentivise (e.g. cycling
mileage for business travel expenses, rail season
ticket loans)
Create a staff volunteering day (paid time off)
Enhance the student
experience
Broader, more
connected and useful
research
Build trust with staff
Staff carbon conversation sessions
Implant sustainability ethos throughout the
curriculum and research
Connect our
community and
create a wider sense
of place
Deeper and broader
understanding of
issues within practice
practice
Use the language of practice, not sustainability
No ‘sustainability’ degrees but aim to offer all
students a chance to interact
Well fitted to studio
culture and Studio+
development
By having students and academics lead change,
protect academic freedoms from external ‘green’
pressure
Links departments,
and tackles silos
between Schools
Bring in external speakers, guest lecturers
Cross-disciplinary by
nature
Involve students in their practice-spaces
Use Estates issues to illustrate and solve problems
across the GSA
Give knowledge and skills, responsibility and
authority to expand the role of SSCCs and student
forums to give students a greater voice
Increased
awareness, skills and
knowledge
Better balanced
students
Reconnect to nature
Create a permanent student quiet space
Improve the
employment prospects
of students
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Have GSASA promote more non-alcoholic social
events and spaces
Students help lead
curriculum
development
Continue to support GSA Sport and emerging
student societies that explore sustainability areas
Empowered students,
e.g. bees, food
It’s not about the grades Integrate ethos of deeper examination of issues
or even the practice, but within practice
a broader level of
experience, thinking and Focus on wider questioning of why a material or
Clearer career
pathways
Better use of their
awareness
process takes place, why a thing is made
degree
Focus on, and deliver, clearer graduate outcomes
Improved graduate
outcomes
Broader and deeper
understanding
Catalyse Local
GSA as an academic,
Partnerships and Create economic, social and
Growth
ethical force for good
Use sustainability as a tool for culture change
Multidisciplinary
graduates
Disrupt the zeitgeist
Move from “I will if you will” to initiating and leading
partnerships
Maximise the benefits
the GSA can deliver
Routinely examine ways any project can link to local
architecture, development, design or art
Push innovation
Create local networks
Link operational estate improvements to the wider
geographical community, e.g. energy generation
Be a Leader
How does the GSA
make things better?
How do we become a
Civic Leader?
Ensure suppliers & contractors follow our lead
Have 350 sustainability staff not three - put
sustainability and its principles into everyone’s job
description
Enhance the GSA’s
reputation and
standing
Improved SFC profile
Improved perceived &
actual transparency
Anticipate and exceed SFC requirements and goals
Take part in the local community council
Provide local benefits to Garnethill
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Shared responsibility
amongst staff
Strengthen
international
Stand up for and make things better within our
practice community, GSA community and
geographical community
Take a more active role with HEI organisations such
as the EAUC
Monitor and report – create real, good news stories
Implant sustainability principles in operational,
strategic and future plans – not added on or
separate but throughout and within
Report sustainability at the same level as finances
Build it all in, not bolt it on
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academic and
practice links
Happier local
Garnethill community
Better, coordinated,
more resilient
strategic planning
Be a sector bestpractice leader
Linking to Strategy & Policy
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
The sustainability ethos must implant itself across the GSA – every department, every School, every year and every individual.
Where possible and appropriate, SiAG does not lead.
Comms
Library
H&S
Finance
Equalities
Student
Services/ WP
Registry
Schools
WTMS
IT
HR
L&T
Procurement
Directorate
GSASA
Unions
Halls
Estates
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Students
SiAG
SiAG Strategy
SiAG Curriculum Engagement
Grad Outcome Agreement
Carbon Management Plan
GSA Environment Policy
Campus Redevelopment
GSA Energy/ Water Policy
GSA Resources (waste)
Policy
GSA Construction Policy
Green Travel Plan
GSA Well-being
GSA Green IT Policy
GSA Food Policy
GSA Procurement Policy
GSA Ethical Investment
Policy
Grey: Direct involvement Red: Lead
Internal and External Reporting Partnerships
Comms
Library
H&S
Finance
Equalities
Student
Services/ WP
Registry
Schools
WTMS
IT
HR
L&T
Procurement
Directorate
GSASA
Unions
Halls
Estates
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Students
SiAG
ScotGov Mandatory Reporting
EcoCampus
University (Green) League
GSA SMART targets
Operational (energy use etc.)
Grey: Direct involvement Red: Lead
Contact
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
John Thorne
Sustainability Coordinator
Sustainability in Action Group (SiAG)
Glasgow School of Art, 167 Renfrew Street, Glasgow, G3 6RQ
0141 353 4652, 07851 789 220
j.thorne@gsa.ac.uk
www.gsasustainability.org.uk
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