Bournemouth University SLS Case Study

Bournemouth University shares their experience of using the Sustainability Leadership Scorecard

What was pivotal in you securing senior management authorisation to use the Sustainability Leadership Scorecard (SLS)?

BU is committed through its strategy to embed sustainability across all its activities with the aim to contribute towards achieving the UN SDGs.  BU uses its Environmental Management System, certified to ISO14001:2015, to drive continual improvement and recognised the SLS as a new tool to capture and identify risks and opportunities.

Building on this strong strategic position, a presentation about the SLS and its potential benefits was delivered to the Sustainability Committee, to secure their support for completing the tool. In addition, being involved in the development of the Green Scorecard and having the support of the Director of Estates was also key.

What was your approach to completing the Sustainability Leadership Scorecard?

The Sustainability Manager identified the key stakeholders for each topic area and contacted them asking for their support in completing the SLS.  Meetings of between ½ hour and one hour were scheduled to complete the tool online.  Whilst this was time consuming, it did ensure a consistent approach and completion of the SLS to an agreed deadline. The expectation is less time will be needed next time as stakeholders will be familiar with the tool. The completed SLS was reported to the Sustainability Committee in September 2018.

Did you encourage colleagues from other Departments to participate and help you with the Sustainability Leadership Scorecard?

Yes, those staff responsible for the different topic areas were identified in a stakeholder mapping exercise and then contacted them asking for their support in completing the SLS, emphasising the importance of BU completing the tool and the benefits.  Face to face meetings were essential in completing the SLS and delivering positive outcomes.

What are the 3 top benefits of using the Sustainability Leadership Scorecard?

1. The SLS covers all aspects of sustainability and so enabled good quality conversations with staff who would not normally be involved in such matters
2. The SLS provides a gap analysis and so identified areas for improvement
3. The SLS report was used as evidence for the THE University Impact Rankings.

You can also hear about our approach to the SLS here