Sustainability big part of Yorkshire universities, report shows

It highlights how the commitment across the region’s HE sector to collaborate with outside partners was enabling students to obtain “real world opportunities” to use their skills and help address sustainability needs in their communities.

The guide is designed as a blueprint that can be used by other institutions. It is the culmination of a 15-month £20,000 pilot project funded by the UPP Foundation, which included an audit of the extent to which the 12 YU institutions embedded sustainability in their curricula.

Examples cited include the University of Leeds, which has identified more than 360 modules with a direct link to sustainability, to the Environmental Sustainability at York (ESAY), a pioneering scheme at the University of York designed to promote environmental sustainability in research, teaching and operations, the University of Bradford’s Sustainable Futures Curriculum and the climate resilience labs at the University of Hull.

But crucially it also examined how the universities were approaching sustainability in Service Learning: universities providing educational opportunities for students to use their skills and knowledge on solving genuine sustainability issues in the region through collaborative partnerships between the HE institutions and the communities they serve.

The guide states the YU audit “found evidence of significant dedication to sustainability across all twelve member institutions”.

Whether it’s through student-led conferences, carbon literacy training or working together on community-focused projects, the guide adds that universities acknowledge the “pivotal role” sustainability plays in their curricula.

Monika Antal, assistant director at Yorkshire Universities said: “The project demonstrated there is significant value for universities working in partnership to address sustainability challenges through Service Learning which benefits communities as well as offering students valuable real-world opportunities and experiential learning. We also discovered that community partners benefit from a diverse range of student perspectives and small amounts of funding can help to engage a wider range of students who would otherwise not have got involved in sustainability activities.”

As part of the pilot, all twelve YU member institutions were given £1,000 to use towards boosting Sustainability Service Learning activity and providing experiential learning opportunities.

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Projects ranged from planting 10,000 sphagnum moss plugs during Sheffield Hallam University’s Conservation Day to York St John University piloting a student-led campus café that offers locally-sourced food and provides opportunities for volunteering and developing leadership skills. Leeds Conservatoire enabled their students to carry out environmental field recordings and Leeds Beckett University invited a green building company to set a real-life brief for their students to solve as part of a challenge day.

Institutions reported that even a small amount of seed funding made a considerable positive difference, illustrating that small investments can yield significant outcomes.

A further £3,000 was assigned as prize money to a Multi-University Challenge Day that YU, with the support from the UPP Foundation, and Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commission (YHCC), organised in December 2023, bringing together 36 students from across the 12 regional institutions.

During at the event, groups were tasked with developing ideas on how to engage more students with sustainability while studying at university. the winners were invited to present at the annual Student Sustainability Research Conference hosted by the University of Leeds.

Richard Brabner, executive chair at UPP Foundation said: “Embedding local sustainability projects within the curriculum is great news for the towns and cities universities are from, great news for students who learn vital skills for the workplace, and great news for universities as it improves their reputation. We were proud to fund this project and warmly welcome the report from Yorkshire Universities.”