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The University of Bradford are still not a top performing green university - receiving a 2.1 for the second year running. Their Ecoversity project is set to change that though.
They describe their plans for the future and some exciting initiatives that are already in place - including banning domestic flights.
Ecoversity — Institutionalising Sustainability
Bradford students combine partying with recycling
Ecoversity is the name given to the University of Bradford’s strategic programme on sustainable development. Ecoversity seeks to provide a practical demonstration of how a University can embed principles of sustainable development across an institution, including our campus operations, curriculum, links with our community and most importantly in the student experience.
We are in the early stages of development, and by no means do we consider ourselves a beacon of sustainability - not yet!
After a period of working out how we were going to tackle this enormous challenge, we feel we are beginning to make progress. As with many universities we are trying to get some of the basics right. That includes a step change in recycling activity, greater focus and attention to energy efficiency, developing policies for sustainable purchasing and so on.
In 2007 our activities were boosted by the award of a major project by HEFCE known as Ecoversity StuDent. This project looks to promote student learning about sustainable development — and that means all students regardless of subject or discipline. That means sustainable development for pharmacists, optometrists, midwives, accountants, electrical engineers and so — all 10,000 students. To achieve this we are currently working with our academic staff to review existing curricula and find appropriate ways to embed sustainable development into our teaching and learning.
We have a major student engagement programme which looks at ways of involving students in sustainable development activities outside their formal learning. We run a student Ecoversity ambassador programme, hire Ecoversity interns to support project work, run events, competitions, parties and work with the Union to find ways of bringing sustainable development into the daily lives of students. The photograph shows how students led their own recycling scheme at the recent Party on the Amp - the end of year student party, which in past years has generated tons of waste left for others to clear up.
Our third area of activity is to work with our Estates department in the regeneration of the physical campus to identify new projects as potential educational tools for sustainable development. This could be involving students in project design, developing actual projects to promote principles of sustainable development such as healthier lifestyles or well-being and most importantly communicating to students and staff about what is being undertaken and why. A new biomass boiler installation has been designed with a viewing platform to allow students (and staff) to see the boilers in action together with information boards explaining the rationale for the project.
The management of Ecoversity is through task groups which take forward project ideas generated, in part, from a University-wide Ecoversity conference which invited staff and students for a day to discuss Ecoversity and sustainable development. We currently have 8 task groups which all include student representation. Each task group is chaired by a member of the senior management group. The chair is selected on the basis that they are not an expert in the task group topic to deliberately take them out of their comfort zone.
These groups have implemented a number of projects since the turn of the year including banning of plastic bags, restricting staff from taking UK internal flights, sponsoring a free city centre - campus bus, energy switch off campaigns, food waste recycling and so on. New projects are being generated and discussed all the time.
Contact Details:
Ecoversity Programme Sponsor: Professor Geoff Layer.
Director of Education for Sustainable Development: Dr Peter Hopkinson.
