Green Gown Awards 2014 - Courses and Learning - University of the West of Scotland - Finalist

Using Green Impact as a learning tool to embed sustainability into teaching

This collaborative project between University of the West of Scotland (UWS), SAUWS (Students Association UWS) and NUS, sees sustainability being embedded into teaching at UWS.

The pilot project saw the University’s Events Management students use Green Impact - a NUS toolkit that supports and encourages universities to embed sustainability measures - to audit events venues across the University as part of their course work, learning about the key concepts of sustainability relevant to their chosen profession. This is the first time Green Impact has been developed to be used as a teaching resource.

The project saw students being divided into teams and assigned events venues across UWS to complete Green Impact criteria. The groups compiled environmental impact reports for an event and worked closely with UWS staff in each venue to encourage ‘greener’ actions. The project ran for a trimester with 129 ‘green actions’ achieved. UWS plans to explore expansion into other subject areas in addition to Events Management.

Top 3 learnings

1 An important exercise to raise awareness of the impact and help enhance future performance in sustainability across the events sector as our students take up roles in this area
2 The importance of this project in raising wider awareness of the University’s sustainability activities among staff, students and our partner organisations
3 Raised awareness of the importance and relevance of sustainability to teaching.

Videos

• Using Green Impact as a learning tool to embed sustainability into teaching (click to hide)