EAUC-S Conference 2018 - Behaviour Change Decade Highlight - University of St Andrews

The EAUC-Scotland 2018 Conference, A Decade of Progress, celebrated successes from the decade past, and visioned the decade ahead, to coincide with the EAUC-Scotland office’s 10 year anniversary.

Since 2008 Scotland has reached 2020 carbon reduction targets 6 years early, became one of the first nations to sign up to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and reached the stage where we can generate more than two-thirds of our electricity from renewable sources. Universities and colleges have been thriving in this landscape of sustainability progress over the past ten years.

Before the conference we asked the sector to vote for the sustainability projects that most inspired them over the last 10 years under 6 categories. Judging was undertaken to select a few of these projects to be showcased on the day. The projects highlighted are below:

• Behaviour Change - University of St Andrews, Transition University
• Campus Development and Utilities - University of Aberdeen, Passiv House Nursery
• Learning and Teaching - University of Strathclyde, Vertically Integrated Projects for Sustainable Development
• Living Labs - University of Edinburgh, Case Studies in Sustainable Development Module
• Resource Procurement and Lifecycle - Dundee & Angus College,  Waste to compost project
• Whole Institutional Approaches - South Lanarkshire College, Promoting Sustainable Behaviours as a Strategic Priority

Behaviour Change Decade Highlight

University of St Andrews' project Transition University of St Andrews was selected as the Decade Highlight for Behaviour Change. The presentation given on the day is available to download from the right of this page.

Transition University of St Andrews is a diverse network of people with a common vision of a university and town that exemplify the values and practices of sustainability through scholarship, community and climate action. It is a hub for sustainability activity in St Andrews in projects and actions to reduce carbon footprints by practical sustainable activities. We support the community – not just students – in low-carbon living and practical activities to make our town more resilient. Our core projects are organised around smarter travel, zero waste, local food, and knowledge & skills.

Projects initiated by Transition St Andrews are:

• The Edible campus. A group of 14 garden spaces creating 1 tonne veg per annum.
• The Kernel
• Re-Use schemes for donated unwanted items.  Donations to the value of £40,000 were received in 2017
• Tool Share. A sharing economy for borrowing tools and learning how to use them
• Skill Share. Running 49 sessions ran in 2017 with 477 people engaged in them
• Bike Pool. Hiring and repairing of bikes with volunteers trained in maintenance
• Local events. Examples include Green Film Festival, Green Week
• Ebike scheme / Liftshare – Including floor walks and promotional events
• Research and Training – share knowledge, academic publications, Erasmus student hosts, dissertation topics
• Encourage Behaviour Change through good practice of leadership

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EAUC-Scotland held their fifth conference on the 16th October 2018 at the City of Glasgow College. Find all resources from the Conference using the tag EAUCS2018, and find out more about the event on the Conference webpages.