LUU’s New Sustainability Strategy
When campaigning for Student Exec elections in 2020, we ran on a mandate to prioritise sustainability and the climate in LUU. We had no idea of the year in office that we’d face and understandably, many of our expectations and commitments had to shift due to the pandemic. However, one thing that stayed on the agenda was our commitment to tackling the climate crisis.
Many students told us that they believe the pandemic has changed their attitudes towards sustainability (61%), making them more aware of environmental and sustainability issues (LUU Sustainability Report 2021). A large majority of students were concerned about environmental issues (95%) and believed they directly affect their lives (87%).
We recruited LUU’s new Student Sustainability Advisory Board to guide us in the right direction when writing our new Sustainability Strategy. It was important that the strategy was student-led and continues to be throughout its implementation.
As directed by the student board, LUU’s new Sustainability Strategy has three key strands: Operations, Campaigning and Communications. Being honest and transparent about our sustainable efforts is key to the heart of the strategy. We want an approach to sustainability and tackling the climate crisis that is equitable and just, which eradicates inequalities.
The Impact of Our Operations
Within LUU we offer a wide range of services for the benefit of our membership and we recognise that in operating these services we should seek to ensure our environmental impact is kept to a minimum. We commit to continually strive to research, understand, create and promote ways of reducing our impacts still further. The three sustainability areas that students were most interested in were plastic reduction, waste reduction, and responsible sourcing, so we have sought to embed these in the operations strand of the strategy (LUU Sustainability Report 2021).
We will continue to make sustainability the default option in our venues and outlets and make these choices as easy as possible for our students. We’re continuing to implement changes in all of our outlets, including working with the Co-op to reduce single use plastic, introducing Fairtrade lines and prioritising vegan and vegetarian options on the menus in all of our venues. Recently, we have replaced our LUU minibuses with electric buses, as mandated by forum policy. We’ll continue to welcome and act on policy from students that challenges our current operations.
Facilitating Campaign Activity
We’ll hold ourselves and partners to account and encourage lobbying from our student groups. We want to empower all of our clubs and societies to incorporate sustainability into their activity, and we are working on recommendations to embedding #PlasticFree2023 in student activities.
To facilitate more society activity, we took the 25p levy that we charge for disposable coffee cups in our outlets and made it into the Sustainability Grant Fund. Students and societies can apply for this funding for any initiative that has a positive environmental impact, from £1–1000. Funding has been approved for developing LUU Carbon Literacy training and our new litter picking scheme so far.
As well as encouraging student groups to campaign, we’ll continue embed climate into our union-wide campaigning through our Climate Week activity, interrogating sustainable practice across the union, university, and the city of Leeds.
Communicating What We Do
We strive to be accountable for our targets, and to communicate our progress to the student body, enabling them to challenge us where necessary. We want to celebrate the students and student groups that champion our sustainability values and continue to engage and consult with the student body about our efforts, allowing them to lead our next steps.
We’ll also ensure we’re aligned with the University of Leeds Sustainability Strategy and Climate Plan, which reflect the UN Sustainable Development Goals, consulting experts and external stakeholders where necessary. We should mirror this collaboration and cohesion on a national scale through engagement with Students Organising for Sustainability and other Students’ Unions. Through these partnerships, we’ll make sure to engage with other campaigns and initiatives across Leeds and nationally.
We’re really excited to have developed this area of work for LUU this year. The strategy is an important step to embedding sustainability in the values and operation of our organisation and it will guide our work in this area ahead of our next strategic review. You can find out more about all of the above initiatives and how to get involved on the Sustainability page on our website.
Thank you to Carmen Sedeño Alcántara and Chinomnso Chinedum at LUU for developing and conducting the 2021 Sustainability Survey. Thank you to all of our student sustainability board members for their ideas, and a huge thanks to Matt Broadey for keeping us on track and doing so much of the organising behind all of this work. Finally, an incredibly grateful thank you to Sue Stones for always taking the time to listen to our thoughts, for her enthusiastic support, and her willingness to turn our ideas into action.
Lotti and Izzy, Community and Union Affairs Officers 20/21
