Environmental Sustainability Policy
The School of Geography and Sustainable Development (SGSD) is developing its own Environmental Sustainability Policy. This page shares our progress.
We have decided that it's time for the School of Geography and Sustainable Development at the University of St Andrews to create an Environmental Sustainability policy.
Our mission is to improve the sustainability practices within the School of Geography and Sustainable Development.
Our goals are to work towards making our school net zero by 2035. Something we all need to do to help mitigate the climate crisis.
To work towards more sustainable practices across the school, beyond reducing carbon emissions, like guiding behavior change in how we work and how we use resources.
To develop shared goals and specific targets with the whole school community based on the principles of climate justice and inclusivity and to monitor progress towards
achieving them.
We think the most important themes for us to consider initially are:
Travel and transport.
Which conferences do we really need to attend?
Can we adjust field work plans to reduce carbon emissions?
Are there lift sharing options to help get people to and from work and study?
Energy use within the school.
Can we reduce the energy we use for heating our building?
Are there ways we can share space to reduce energy consumption?
Resource use.
Do we need to purchase as much or could we share more?
Are we recycling all that we could recycle?
As the only school was sustainable in it's name, we're considering how we apply this research in sustainability, in teaching, in practice, and what more research needs to be done.
So we're getting stuck into these issues first.
We're eager to involve everyone, all academic staff, and admin and estate
staff, and all students both, undergraduates and postgraduates, in the development of the policy.
So we are regularly updating the school community on our progress and creating opportunities to discuss our proposals.
We're the first school within the University to develop their own policy, so it's a bit of an experiment and we're learning a lot but we hope we can share what we've learned and support and inspire other schools to create their own environmental
sustainability policies.
if you'd like to know more about what we're doing and keep up to date with our progress, keep an eye on our website so head to the School of Geography and
Sustainable Development and click on the Environmental Sustainability tab.
SSGSD practices what it preaches: to develop sustainable practices within the School and amongst its community of students and staff. We are the first School to be developing an Environmental Sustainability Policy aligning with and going beyond the wider sustainability goals of the University. Undergraduates, postgraduates, administrative staff and academic staff are collaborating to create the policy. We are determined to ensure the breadth of our community are involved in decision making.
Mission
Our mission is to enhance the sustainability of practices and impacts within the School of Geography and Sustainable Development.
Goals
- To work towards making the School of Geography and Sustainable Development net-zero by 2035, as a response to the climate crisis and in line with the University net-zero goal
- To work holistically towards more sustainable practices within the School, developing strategies and guidance as a community that encourage individual and collective behavioural change built on the principles of climate justice and inclusivity
- To develop shared goals and monitor and evaluate progress against agreed targets
- To share learnings and provide leadership on Environmental Sustainability Policy development with other Schools across the University
Our policy will develop protocols and guidance around the following key themes:
- Resource use including procurement, recycling and travel
- Working practices including use of space and laboratory activities
- Community engagement within the School, across the University, within the Higher Education sector and in partnership with local community groups
- Support of practices associated with research and teaching and learning
Our School Events page provides further information on future and past sustainability-related events.
-
We are consulting the School community and Management Committee to devise a policy that is inclusive, collaborative and will lead to meaningful improvements in the School. We will publish updates on the evolving policy and associated strategies here. If you have any questions or feedback, please email the Chair of the Working Group (lesc1@st-andrews.ac.uk).
-
The Student Environmental Team is the student-led working group within the School of Geography and Sustainable Development with a mission to action sustainable and environmentally-conscious practice in the department. Collaborating with its staff partner group, the ESPWG, we work across a multitude of issues, such as resource use, working practice, and travel, to fulfil our commitment to a more sustainable future. In doing so, we also aspire to enhance the legacy of the School, encouraging students to integrate the issues raised by their degrees in their everyday lives and empower them to enact change.
-
The School of Geography and Sustainable Development’s use of electricity, heat, gas and water are being monitored on an hourly to yearly basis. This enables us to observe change in demand over time, set targets for the reduction in use of these resources and monitor progress towards those targets. We are aiming to make this dashboard available to everyone.
-
SGSD offers a variety of degree options in Sustainable Development:
- Undergraduate BSc. or MA
- Postgraduate taught (MSc)
- Postgraduate research (PhD, MPhil, MSc (Res) and MSt (Res))
In addition to these courses, there is an opportunity for Geography students to complete a Joint Honours Degree with Sustainable Development, and for students to engage in the University’s new Vertically Integrated Projects (VIPs). Please see the next concertina for more information on the VIPs coordinated by lecturers in SGSD.
A variety of lecturers, with a wide range of expertise, teach across the courses within each degree, drawing on their ongoing research within the key areas of importance in sustainability science and practice.
To learn more about how the fundamental theme of environmental sustainability maps through the curricula of the School of Geography and Sustainable Development, or about the modules within the degree courses that have been awarded a Golden Dandelion, explore the University’s Learning for sustainability pages.
-
SGSD currently coordinates two VIPs: Environmental Ethics at Work and Looking after Eden. Here is a little more information on them.
‘Environmental Ethics at Work’
Module Coordinator: Dr Louise ReidEthics are a set of moral principles fundamental to how individuals, organisations – including Universities - and societies operate. This VIP will explore how Universities approach ethics, particularly related to environmental sustainability. The global climate emergency and the University’s new Environmental Strategy and Board make it timely to explore how ethics and environmental sustainability come together within our organisation.
This VIP will evaluate and develop suggestions for our University to better engage with ‘environmental ethics’ in organisational policies and practices by answering the following research questions:
- What can we learn from other organisations (governmental, corporate, higher education) about their approach to environmental ethics?
- How do the University of St Andrews’ ethical procedures currently work, and to what extent to they involve environmental concerns?
- What is an ethical funder, and how does the University of St Andrews’ identify ethical funders?
- How might we, as a University, integrate environmental concerns into existing ethical procedures and practices
- What are the best methods to evaluate the implementation of new environmental ethics procedures?
- How can the learning from RQ’s 1-5 be shared and useful for other organisations?
‘Looking After Eden’
Module Coordinator: Dr Antje BrownThis vertically integrated project brings together researchers and students from various disciplines who share an interest in the Eden Estuary. The Eden Estuary is right on our doorstep; it is a local nature reserve with SSSI, SAC, SPA and Ramsar status and we benefit from this nature reserve in many ways, including recreational and educational. Like many other nature reserves, the Eden Estuary and its inhabitants are exposed to a number of immediate and local as well as global and accumulative pressures caused by us humans. It is therefore essential to research these pressures on the Estuary, disseminate findings and lessons from our observations and develop solutions that will not only benefit the Estuary itself but can also be employed in other parts of the world. Staff involved in this project not only share a research interest in the Estuary, they have experience in innovative teaching & research methods and are interested in engaging VIP students (and the local community) in this collaborative project.
The project is guided by the following investigative steps: (1) Establish what we know about the Eden Estuary, (2) assess how can we support the Eden Estuary, (3) and evaluate our findings, share those with others, and look ahead.
- Our key objectives are:
Give VIP students an inter-disciplinary and engaging learning experience that accompanies them across several semesters and gives them a sense of progression and impact; - Contribute to conversations and collaborations on sustainability in and around the Eden Estuary;
- Consider the Eden Estuary as a delta in miniature that offers us an insight into ecological and human patterns past, present, and future, that can be observed elsewhere and at larger scales;
- And finally, the VIP is intended to integrate and complement ongoing research and teaching across the university and beyond. Evidence generated by this VIP will benefit other research projects such as the Citizen Fins project. By participating in this VIP, students will have the opportunity to learn about a wide range of research methods and technologies and will be able to convey their findings in various formats such as policy-mapping, decision-trees, and citizen science research.
-
‘Sustainability’ is a central theme of much of the research undertaken within the School. It ranges from how to sustainably manage life in the home, to life in the oceans, and ways of improving the sustainability of the golfing sector through transdisciplinary engagement. More information on the research underway within SGSD can be found on the School's research page.
Effective research into sustainability is necessary. SGSD is well placed to lead and engage in projects exploring what ‘sustainable’ looks like in practice. We are always looking for people to collaborate with, so if you have an idea for a joint project, please email the School’s Director of Research (gsddor@st-andrews.ac.uk).
-
We recognise that decolonisation and decarbonisation in education and practice can only be achieved when combined. In research and the curriculum of SGSD, we are exploring their meaning and connection.
We are exploring what ‘decarbonising’ the curriculum means and how we might achieve it in practice within SGSD. Fossil carbon is currently an inevitable part of our daily lives, including our education systems. But in what ways exactly? How can we reduce the ways we continue to support the exploitation of fossil fuels and the capitalist system which thrives on this unsustainable industry? The University and College Union (UCU) are asking these questions also, and have some useful resources on the topic in the COP26 campaign.
-
As travel becomes a possibility again, we are eager to spend more time considering which trips are necessary, desired, or now unacceptable for each of us and our community.
We have surveyed the SGSD community to understand more about if and how travel habits are changing, in comparison to before the pandemic, and why, and to investigate what support the School, and University, needs to provide to help reduce carbon emissions from work-related travel.
Travel is one key area of behaviour change that none of us can ignore, and one that presents a large and interesting challenge for Geographers! We will report back on progress towards developing a travel policy. Please contact Lydia (lesc1@st-andrews.ac.uk) if you’d like to see the results of the survey.
-
The St Andrews Forest is a recent initiative adopted by the University, to create, restore and enhance ecosystems within Fife, across Scotland, and the World, with the goal of offsetting international student travel over time. The Forest will play a central role in enabling the University to achieve its goal of sequestering as large a volume of greenhouse gases as it emits (i.e., be ‘net zero’) by 2035. In order to achieve this ambitious target, however, we need to know how much carbon the Forest patches are absorbing, whilst also considering the wider benefits these ecosystems might be having for biodiversity, and human wellbeing.
During the summer of 2022, a team of seven students from across the University (Victoria Lee, Can Li, Tsz Tam, Pablo Carreras Avila, Ava Hardin, Alma Hummelsberger, Oliver Eastwood) worked on the St Andrews Forest: carbon, biodiversity and environmental benefit project, funded by the Summer Teams Enterprise Programme (STEP) at the University. Under the guidance of STEP Coaches, Abi Whitefield and Georg Kodl, these students spent seven weeks researching what carbon, biodiversity and ecosystem service metrics might be worth measuring and monitoring across the St Andrews Forest patches. They presented a very well researched and considered set of variables and protocols to the STEP Sponsors, Lydia Cole (chair of the ESPWG), Richard Streeter and David Toy (the Programme Manager of St Andrews Forest), which David will consider carefully as he continues to develop the programme. If you want to keep up to date with the St Andrews Forest, you can sign up to the newsletter.
-
We are investigating what a more sustainable menu might look like for SGSD, based on the options available through the University Catering Service. It is proving quite a challenge to calculate the carbon emissions, biodiversity and social impact associated with different food types in order to make choices about the sustainability of different menus. So whilst we explore ways of doing this, and potential outcomes for the School’s sustainable food sourcing policy, we have developed a poster to guide people through evaluating how environmentally sustainable their eating habits are. Through answering a series of questions on the poster (PDF), you can 'test' the sustainability of your food consumption choices (according to a series of the more tangible metrics that we identified). Please send any thoughts or feedback to Lydia (lesc1@st-andrews.ac.uk). (The poster was produced by Edward Pomeroy, a Geography undergraduate student, in August of 2022, with funding gratefully received from the St Andrews Research Internship Scheme.)
-
COP26 and The University of St Andrews
University of St Andrews Sustainability site
University of St Andrews Network for Climate, Energy, Environment and Sustainability
University of St Andrews Transition group’s webpage
Vertically Integrated Projects (VIPs) available at the University of St Andrews
University Lift Share scheme