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UCL wins 'Outstanding Contribution to Environmental Sustainability' award!

6 December 2017

camden business award

We are extremely pleased to announce that last Thursday night UCL received the ‘Outstanding Contribution to Environmental Sustainability’ award at the Camden Business Awards.

UCL enjoyed a successful night at the Camden Business Awards on Thursday, winning the ‘Outstanding Contribution to Environmental Sustainability’ award. UCL was also Highly Commended in the ‘Employer of the Year’ category.

The Camden Business Awards

The Camden Business Awards are a bi-annual event that recognise the leading business and organisations in the London Borough of Camden, where UCL’s Bloomsbury campus is located. With 50,000 staff and students and a large, 200-year old estate, UCL has an important role to play in driving sustainability in Camden.

UCL Innovation and Enterprise

The awards were also an important opportunity to celebrate the many successful businesses and enterprises in UCL’s neighbourhood. Reflecting UCL’s role in developing new talent and the next generation of successful enterprise in Camden, UCL sponsored the ‘Young Entrepreneur of the Year’ award, which was taken home by the Camden Tea Company.

Completing a great night for UCL, In2ScienceUK, a UCL-supported non-profit organisation was also ‘Highly Commended’ in the ‘Knowledge Partners Award’ category.

In2ScienceUK is a non-profit organisation that supports young people from low income backgrounds through STEM study and careers. Working from UCL’s BaseKX, an incubator for UCL’s staff, students and alumni, In2ScienceUK has worked with UCL to deliver a number of exciting and important STEM work placements.

UCL Sustainability

The Outstanding Contribution to Environmental Sustainability is just one of a series of awards UCL has received this year that recognise and celebrate the outstanding contribution the University is making towards improving its environmental and social impact.

greenleague2017badge

In November, UCL received “first class” status in the People and Planet Green League for the third year in a row. Having steadily moved up the rankings, UCL was ranked 26th most ethical and environmental university out of 154 in the UK.

The awards recognise the work undertaken to address sustainability across UCL’s estate and operations, and work with the UCL community to drive higher levels of sustainability performance. 

Some of the activities which have been undertaken include:

  • Attaining Eco Campus Platinum and ISO14001 certification for UCL’s Environmental Management System (UCL requires its contractors to be certified to ISO14001 too).
  • Adopting the Net Positive tool to eradicate modern day slavery from our supply chains.
  • Achieving the highest standards of sustainability through the capital programme.
  • Addressing heating and cooling through a progressive review of building management systems (still in train).
  • Investing in energy improvements.
  • Transitioning to more ethical investment, see our work here.
  • Producing an Energy Efficiency Fund to support departments when buying energy-efficient equipment which have higher up-front cost.

For more information on how UCL is transforming sustainably, see the Green UCL website.

Education for Sustainable Development

esd main pic1

In addition to making our campus and operations sustainable, UCL is reviewing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Through UCL’s teaching and research, we have the opportunity to make a global impact on sustainable development by educating our community on the sustainability challenges of our times. See our work here.

Richard Jackson, Director of Sustainability:

" I am extremely pleased that our efforts as an institution have been recognized. It is worth noting that the Sustainability team couldn’t have achieved this award alone. UCL has a strong Green Champion network who are tirelessly working away at making UCL more socially and environmentally sustainable. While we still have a long way to go on our journey, we are grateful to Camden for putting on this award category, we hope that our achievement will inspire other intuitions in Camden and beyond to follow suit.” 

Get involved with UCL’s Sustainability Strategy

UCL’s Sustainability Strategy will be reviewed in the New Year. This is an exciting project which will invite and draw on involvement from the whole UCL community. We look forward to working with you all when embarking on this new strategy.