Universities’ Social and Environmental Benchmarking Scheme in Final Phase

18 June 09


Universities’ Social and Environmental Benchmarking Scheme in Final Phase

Headline Results to be published July 09


The final phase of the new Universities that Count (UTC) environmental and social responsibility benchmarking programme is now complete. The headline results of the scheme will be published in early July 2009, while entries are open for Higher Education Institutions wishing to sign up for the 2009/10 initiative.

More than 55 Higher Education Institutions are involved in this year’s scheme, which is the first independent, quality assured Corporate Responsibility benchmarking initiative to be designed specifically for the HE sector.

The programme began by running a series of ‘Getting Started’ workshops in late 2008. Participating institutions were then required to complete detailed, in depth online surveys outlining their positive contribution to sustainable development.

Review visits were then conducted during May and June 2009, in addition to telephone and email assessments. Detailed feedback reports will now be supplied to all the organisations that have taken part, allowing the universities and colleges to plan performance improvements and share information. Universities will be able to compare their scores with the average for the sector, and with equivalent scores achieved by companies in the Business in the Community Corporate Responsibility Index.

Liesl Truscott of CSR Consultancy and project manager of the scheme commented, “It is clear from the results accrued to date that universities and colleges are taking great strides embedding sustainability and corporate and social responsibility within all they do. Particular progress has been made in the areas of teaching, learning and research and this is an area on which the UTC index will focus on in the future.”

The Universities that Count programme is based on the Business in the Community’s authoritative Corporate Responsibility (CR) Index, published in the Financial Times in May 2009.

Universities that Count is a partnership between the UK HE Funding Councils, the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges (EAUC), Business in the Community and CSR Consultancy.

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