A Guide for Members of Governing Bodies – Conclusion

We hope that this Guide has provided some insights into embedding sustainability within your institution as a means of delivering long-term success.

This Guide seeks to equip you to challenge the senior team to ensure they adopt a future-facing, risk-based approach to planning and management which can deliver institutional success in a resource constrained, competitive and volatile environment.

As stakeholders often perceive universities as public bodies, there is enormous opportunity to exercise thought leadership, setting the standard for others in how we choose to deal with societal issues. Meanwhile, failure to ensure a socially responsible and sustainable approach to delivery of research and education can attract adverse publicity at a time when higher education is being challenged as a social good.

While there have been many significant achievements across the sector to-date, there is a need for a more deliberate and strategic approach to re-framing sustainability as a strategic agenda in higher education institutions. This is a key opportunity for members of governing bodies to embrace sustainability thinking and ensure their institution remains agile and adaptive in a complex and dynamic global higher education environment. 

This Guide highlights the wide range of institutional benefits across four pillars of success: Financial Resilience, Student Outcomes, Research and Innovation and Societal Impact.

There is a wealth of support and information available from EAUC to help your institution capitalise on these opportunities. Working together we can lead change and ensure the sector is at the forefront of this agenda. EAUC wants to see sustainability as “just good business” (17) in the higher and further education sectors.

If you have any thoughts or comments on what you have read, please do get in touch.

EAUC Board of Trustees

(17) EAUC Strategy 2017-2021: www.eauc.org.uk/what_we_do