The issues of social, environmental and economic sustainability are interlinked, so our approach to solving them must be too. The Students’ Union believes that education and research have a fundamental and unique role in creating a world with sustainability at its core.
Sustainability Action Plan 2023/24
Sustainability Action Plan 2022/23
Sustainability Action Plan 2021/22
Sustainability Action Plan 2020/21
Sustainability Action Plan 2019/20
Sustainability Action Plan 2018/19
Sustainability Action Plan 2017/18
Sustainability Action Plan 2016/17
The Students' Union at UWE builds our yearly sustainability action plan as a result of our sustainability survey, the student ideas you submit and input from our elected Sustainability Committee.
The Students’ Union at UWE is committed to embedding sustainability into everything we do, from our campaigns to our competitions. We have been the highest-scoring students’ union in the UK for five years running in the NUS Green Impact awards (2016-2021). We do this because our students have told us how much they care about the climate emergency.
To continue and expand our sustainability work, we are striving to continually reduce the negative impact of our events and competitions, while using our purchasing power as a force for good, for example, choosing local, sustainable and ethical businesses to source products and prizes from. We have put together some guidance on ethical and sustainable products and prizes to help you plan for campaigns and events with sustainability in mind.
Contact the Green Team on: thegreenteam@uwe.ac.uk
We have also identified significant negative environmental impacts our operations produce, we are taking steps to reduce this impact year on year.
Read 2021/2022 Negative Environmental Impact
Read 2020/2021 Negative Environmental Impact
Read 2019/2020 Negative Environmental Impact
Read 2018/2019 Negative Environmental Impact
Ranking our impact: Green Aspects Register
Read 2017/2018 Negative Environmental Impact
The Students' Union at UWE is making a concerted effort to be less wasteful and more efficient in order to reduce our carbon emissions and contribute to collective targets (UWE's institutional carbon targets; the Climate Change Act; the Paris agreement). Each year we produced a report looking back at our performance over the past three academic years.
Click here to understand our current approach to reducing utilities.
Click here to see our approach to reducing utilities in 2017/2018.
Click here to see our approach to reducing utilities in 2016/2017.