Keeping pace with enthusiasm for sustainable development

 
Projects in the higher education (HE) sector are being supported via a HEFCE funding initiative ‘Leading sustainable development in higher education’. In response to increasing activity in the HE sector on sustainable development, HEFCE directed more funding from its Leadership, Governance and Management Fund towards supporting it.

In December 2009 HEFCE invited proposals (Note 3) from higher education institutions (HEIs) for projects which supported both its own sustainable development strategy, and Universities UK and GuildHE’s University Leader’s Statement of Intent on sustainable development.

Eleven projects were subsequently selected for funding: three higher-value projects (up to around £200,000) and eight smaller-scale projects (up to £75,000). The funded projects cover the spectrum of the sustainable development agenda – from technical through to leadership and information issues, and are detailed below.

Steve Egan, HEFCE Director for Finance and Corporate Resources, said: ‘Sustainable development is central to HEFCE’s strategy for future development of the HE sector, and we’re pleased to be funding a range of projects, including in leadership, behavioural change, carbon management, local partnerships on sustainability, and the curriculum. The sector has an important contribution to make to sustainable development and these projects reflect its high level of commitment’.
The 11 projects selected for funding are:

Birkbeck, University of London
Bloomsbury environmental management shared service
Four central London institutions will explore a common approach to the issues of carbon management and the sustainable operation of estates.

Bournemouth University
Developing leaders for sustainable development: enabling behaviour change
Bournemouth and Sussex Universities, two distinctly different HEIs, will together aim to broaden leadership support for sustainable development and capacity building, by working with governing bodies and senior management teams.

Cranfield University
Carbon brainprint
The project will develop, test and disseminate a robust, repeatable methodology for measuring the intellectual contribution HEIs make towards reducing the carbon footprint of other organisations.

Harper Adams University College
Developing carbon management strategies for HE institutions with extensive landholdings
The project will enable institutions with extensive landholdings (including farmed land) to measure greenhouse gas emissions arising from agricultural activities, establish realistic carbon equivalent reduction targets and develop informed carbon management plans.

University of Gloucestershire
Leading curriculum change for sustainability: strategic approaches to quality enhancement
A project engaging in the strategic need to reorient graduates’ skills to better address sustainability challenges. It seeks to improve institutional leadership by progressing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) through quality assurance and enhancement.

University of Lincoln
Electromagnates
A project to design, implement, and evaluate a suite of social software applications to encourage positive changes in the way HE and local authority workplaces and environments consume energy.

University of Liverpool and the Energy Consortium
Increasing renewable energy generation in the HE sector
The project will consider the evaluation of technologies and contractual models for both ‘on-site’ and ‘off-site’ generation, with a view to providing HEIs with framework agreements by which they can access renewable energy generation.

University of Northampton
Keeping it local: shared solutions for sustainability
A project to explore how universities can achieve a co-ordinated response to sustainability across sector partners in Northamptonshire in a way that achieves significant multiplier effects, and to create a plan of action for new area-based initiatives.

University of Nottingham
Integrating Sustainability into Business Schools
The project will provide guidance to business schools on how to integrate and communicate social, economic and ecological sustainability in their educational programmes, research and organisational practices/processes.

University of Oxford
Midnight Oil: How are our 24-hour University buildings really used and how can we better manage out of hours use to reduce carbon emissions?
A project to assess usage patterns of four 24-hour buildings, which will be used to recommend changes to overnight zoning and controls, reducing carbon emissions and feeding into a case study and toolkit for use by other universities.

Staffordshire University and the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges
Environmental exchange
A project to develop and implement an interactive web-based HE repository of sustainability technical guidance and case studies.