Thursday 13-07-2017 - 11:59

Every year, the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges (EAUC) runs the Green Gown Awards, to recognise exceptional sustainability initiatives by universities and colleges.

This year's finalists have just been shortlisted: 113 of them, across 15 categories, which include Community, Employability, and Learning and Skills. The projects range from electric pool cars, to music albums dedicated to climate change. They include ambitious zero carbon targets, pioneering new ways to create heat sources from waste, and the largest Passivhaus building in the UK. The finalists represent nearly 1.5 million students and just under a quarter of a million members of staff leading the way with their commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Students' unions are represented, too: The Students’ Union at UWE is shortlisted in the Food and Drink category for their work on Fairtrade; Thomas Haines from the same union is shortlisted in the Sustainability Champion Award Student category; Paul Dingley form the same union again is shortlisted in the Staff category; and the Students’ Union at Bournemouth University is nominated in the Community category for their work connecting the local community to wildlife.

This year - for the first time - applicants were tasked with outlining how their sustainability projects incorporated the global SDGs. All applicants listed at least one SDG they were delivering. Two thirds of this year’s finalists listed ‘sustainable cities and communities’, and just under half are working towards ‘responsible consumption and production’. Half proposed projects that improved ‘quality education’, and almost forty percent are delivering on 'climate action'.

Iain Patton, Chief Executive at the EAUC, said: “With the EAUC’s new strategy to reposition and align sustainability around key institutional priorities and challenges, this year’s Green Gown Award applications reflect the potential of sustainability to solve the sector's most critical problems. Every day, tireless environmental and sustainability leaders across the UK and Ireland are driving change and making sustainability just good business. The Green Gown Awards exist to give them the recognition and platform they need to do even more.”

The EAUC believes that post-16 education is key to achieving the SDGs in the UK, and crucial to safeguarding the planet's future - and as such believes the Government has a responsibility to increase funding to the sector.

Winners are announced on 15 November 2017 at The Monastery, Manchester.