Green Gown Awards 2018 - STAFF - David Johnston - University of the West of Scotland - Finalist

Inspirational in driving team action to significantly reduce business and commuter travel.  Travel was identified as one of the greatest environmental, financial and efficiency impacts of the Information, Technology and Digital Services Department (ITDS).  As a five campus institution the department was required to provide support across West Central Scotland and the UWS London campus.

As team lead, I took action in developing procedures to target a significant reduction in travel.  The focus was initially on providing an exemplar on the use of IT to reduce the requirement for inter-campus travel, through widespread use of video and web conferencing.  As well as reducing travel emissions and mileage claims this also provided savings in staff time travelling to meetings.

I then targeted a reduction in commuter travel through agile working practices, including home working and hot desking at campus nearest to the individuals’ home, supported by remote access technology.

Top 3 learnings:

1. We are not Sustainability experts but focused on our ITDS expertise to deliver Sustainability.

2. We focused on what benefits the initiative could bring to the team in as many areas as we could.

3. We have driven efficiencies within the department, reducing cost and increasing productive work hours.

CO2t savings 2017/2018: 60 (Estimated) 

CO2t savings 2018/2019: 70 (Estimated)