Policy and Strategy
An environmental policy provides a formal, public and permanent demonstration of intent regarding performance. A sustainability strategy or action plan is crucial for enabling sustained, strategic improvement in environmental performance, backed up by senior management and with adequate resources.
Policy, targets and reporting are key drivers of performance improvement across the sector and the People & Planet University League rewards universities with environmental policies and associated strategies which set specific and time-bound targets or performance indicators covering all major aspects of environmental management.
Simply complying with environmental legislation is insufficient. Universities are only awarded maximum points in this section if their policy or related action plan or strategy sets SMART(Specific, Measurable, Agreed upon or Actionable, Realistic or Relevant, Time-bound) targets for improvements in all eight key areas of environmental management.