Green Gown Awards 2016–Sustainability Reporting–Manchester Metropolitan University–Highly Commended

Telling our stakeholders about the journey we take to achieve our sustainability goals is incredibly important to us! It helps us articulate our performance, vision and strategy, and is a great way of engaging our stakeholders.

We have transformed our approach toward sustainability reporting over a number of years, and have worked hard to communicate complex data effectively - to share our performance and achievements with our staff, students, and the rest of the Higher Education (HE) sector. 86% of Manchester Mets students now think that we are an environmentally sustainable University!

We take a performance-based approach, reporting transparently- telling our audience about the good as well as the bad, and communicate robust data that demonstrates our progress and backs our performance claims.

We see it as vital in achieving a sustainable HE sector- nationally and internationally. Sustainability reporting enhances our accountability for our impacts, and helps to drive progress in the sector.

Manchester Metropolitan University Environmental Sustainability Statement 2014 - 2015

Top 3 learnings

1 Don’t just report annually! - Often, by the time the report is published, many of the initiatives that we report on have been and gone. It is easy to measure and evaluate initiatives immediately, and great to engage your audience and celebrate tour successes straight away as well.

2 Be honest- tell your audience about the good and the bad because it gives the report credibility

3. Communicate well! Not everybody wants to read a written report. Remember that the information contained within the report can easily be Communicated in a multitude of ways to a variety of audiences…….through film, animation, as part of staff and student induction activities, brochures etc.- all in bitesize chunks.