OU rises in People and Planet League

The People and Planet League is an annual ranking of UK Universities based on publicly available environmental and ethical performance. In Summer 2023, we were audited by People and Planet and the findings published on 13 December in the People and Planet League Table. The OU now ranks 67 (up from 116 last year) giving us a 2:2 lower second-class honours. This jump is a definite improvement for the University compared to previous years and cause for celebration. However, there is still much work to be done to aim higher and demonstrate lifelong learning!

Notable areas where we have improved over the last year include:

• Sustainable Food (40%), with good progress and the promise of more in the near future;
• Environmental Policy (50%), due to our review and cyclical update of policies which will further improve next year with use of SPARK and our enhanced evidencing of progress;
• Waste and recycling (62.5%), which can expand to move up the waste hierarchy, to reduce and reuse, through extended use of Warp-It and embedding reuse in procurement of new goods;
• Sustainability Staff (75%), with thanks to all those colleagues who now liaise closely with our Director of Sustainability and Sustainability Projects Manager to form a matrix Sustainability Office and contribute to the Sustainability Coordination Group;
• Staff and student Engagement (70%), with thanks to close collaboration with Student Voice and OUSA colleagues;
• Education for sustainable development (98%), with huge thanks to the wide range of colleagues now engaging in Responsible Futures ahead of our April 2024 audit.  A particular mention and thanks is due to Teresa Cox who has championed this project from the outset.

Nick Braithwaite, VCE sponsor for Sustainability commented, “This is very good progress up the mountain we are climbing on our sustainability journey. The Sustainability Office works with a large number of enthusiastic stakeholders distributed across all units - and together they have done a great job to get us here … onwards and upwards!”

Whilst we are very pleased with this year’s result, we know there are areas where there is still considerable work to do within the university. We continue to strive to achieve improvements in these areas. The People and Planet league table, and the range of areas that it covers, is a good indicator of where all universities can focus attention to embed sustainable working practices. We can learn from our colleagues who are performing better than us. Working together as a sector, we can gain new skills and demonstrate our learning in continuous improvement. This is a reminder to all of us that ‘sustainability is everyone’s job’!

Below is a visual summary of our progress, to help celebrate, maintain, enhance and prioritise our work over the next year.  Please do join us!