Green Gown Awards 2014 - Student Engagement - University of Exeter Student's Guild

Students’ Green Unit: Students shaping sustainability through behavioural change

The Students’ Green Unit bridges the gap between student action and academic research leading to lasting change in the environmental and ethical sustainability of the University, its community and the wider world.

The University embeds student leadership in the governance of its sustainability agendas and bring students together with staff to implement solutions to sustainability grand challenges drawn from academics’ research via projects supported and funded by the Unit.

The Unit will draw the Guild and University’s sustainability agendas together under five themes; operations, education, research, community and student activity and employability. Mentored by staff and supported interns, students will develop and deliver sustainability projects across the University’s campuses and in the community.

Top 3 learnings

1 Stakeholder mapping is crucial from the start to avoid overloading and duplication within the communications system
2 Do not work in isolation. Collaboration is the key to delivering a successful project
3 Communicate/promote milestones and successes. Take a lot of photos to accompany reports as they draw people to read further. Furthermore, by engaging students to lead the establishment of a joint strategy sustainability strategy, its projects will leave
a lasting legacy.

Videos

• Students’ Green Unit: Students shaping sustainability through behavioural change (click to hide)