Sustainability with University of Plymouth

We have a strong strategy for sustainability, incorporating social economic and environmental principles that have been in place for nearly two decades. This includes short, medium and long term objectives measured against baseline data. We seek to deliver continuous improvement against our own performance.

Disclosing our approach to implementing sustainability at Plymouth is important to us. Since 2007 we have participated in the People & Planet Green League, coming first twice and second no less than four times. In 2016 we decided to move to a disclosure framework that would be internationally recognised and so implemented the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework for a new challenge. GRI is an international independent organisation, providing a globally recognised framework for sustainability.

This enables us to report on the impacts related to our economic, social and environmental performance against aspects that are material to us and align with our sustainability targets. From 2016, this is the framework that we will be using to publicly disclose our performance.

We are externally accredited to ISO 14001 for our Environmental Management System, for the activities on our main campus site, including Cookworthy building. We use the guidance detailed in the International Standards Organisation as a framework for how we manage our environmental impacts, our social responsibility and our utility consumption. The ISO standards offer independent, non-governmental status that is internationally accepted.