The People & Planet Green League is the only comprehensive and independent ranking of United Kingdom universities by environmental and ethical performance and practice. [1] It is compiled by the student campaign group People & Planet. From 2007 to 2010 the Green League was published annually in the Times Higher Education Supplement , but since 2011 it has been published in The Guardian . [2]
The People & Planet Green League was first published in 2007, as a way of driving forward environmental performance within the university sector. The People & Planet Green League publicly benchmarks the sector's green credentials by combining universities' estates performance data with information about their environmental policies and management practices.
It initially scored UK universities on four key institutional factors needed to drive forward significant and sustained improvement in environmental performance, as highlighted by the Going Green report. [3] These criteria were:
Published each year in affiliation with a national newspaper, the People & Planet Green League aims to boost the national profile of environmental management in higher education by celebrating and sharing best practice and exposing inaction.
The People & Planet Green League adapts and modifies its methodology each year. The aim of this process is to respond to new environmental concerns, push transition further and incorporate feedback and criticism from previous years to improve the accuracy and transparency of the Green League.
In 2012, the Green League measured universities according to 13 key indicators:
Universities are awarded a 'First', '2:1', '2:2' or 'Third' rating dependent upon performance.
In 2012, the Green League was shortlisted for a Green Gown award.
The Green League 2007 received critical acclaim following its publication. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) awarded The People & Planet Green League with a British Environment and Media Award for Best Campaign. The WWF said of The Green League 2007 that: "It succeeded in dragging environmental issues from the fringes and making them a central concern for many Vice Chancellors." [4]
The Green League received praise from Chris Huhne when Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change:
The Green League throws a spotlight onto the work being done in universities to cut emissions, and I hope it will encourage universities and students to redouble their efforts in the fight against climate change. It is the students in universities today who will be carrying on the work to build the low-carbon Britain of tomorrow, and it is vital that universities and Government set a good example. [1]
The methodology has been criticised for not fully incorporating all factors that can contribute to an institution's sustainability; for instance schemes soon to be implemented.
The ranking also did not incorporate the amount of Environmental Research and Teaching, which while not directly contributing to any reduction in the university's carbon footprint, does serve to educate the next generation, and may reveal a new way to increase sustainability. However, a high level of environment research does not seem to correlate with a sustainable university (for instance, Aberystwyth University, which runs a number of courses on Environmental Management, [5] but gained only 97th position in the Green League). The University of Greenwich is another institution which believed that the criteria for marking was too limited, and following several criticms [6] Green League acknowledged that it needed to expand its indicators, which it has done in the following years.
Another criticism is that much of the information is reliant on the institutions faithfulness; People and Planet did not have the resources to mount an independent audit.
These criticisms have largely been addressed by People and Planet, and this can be seen in the amendments which have been made in the measuring criteria which now includes many new areas of assessment which do address other areas of a universities environment.
The ecological footprint is a method promoted by the Global Footprint Network to measure human demand on natural capital, i.e. the quantity of nature it takes to support people and their economies. It tracks this demand through an ecological accounting system. The accounts contrast the biologically productive area people use for their consumption to the biologically productive area available within a region, nation, or the world. In short, it is a measure of human impact on the environment and whether that impact is sustainable.
The triple bottom line is an accounting framework with three parts: social, environmental and economic. Some organizations have adopted the TBL framework to evaluate their performance in a broader perspective to create greater business value. Business writer John Elkington claims to have coined the phrase in 1994.
Aberystwyth University is a public research university in Aberystwyth, Wales. Aberystwyth was a founding member institution of the former federal University of Wales. The university has over 8,000 students studying across three academic faculties and 17 departments.
Ethical consumerism is a type of consumer activism based on the concept of dollar voting. People practice it by buying ethically made products that support small-scale manufacturers or local artisans and protect animals and the environment, while boycotting products that exploit children as workers, are tested on animals, or damage the environment.
People & Planet is a network of student campaign groups in the UK. It is "the largest student campaigning organisation in the country campaigning to alleviate world poverty, defend human rights and protect the environment."
Environmental resource management is the management of the interaction and impact of human societies on the environment. It is not, as the phrase might suggest, the management of the environment itself. Environmental resources management aims to ensure that ecosystem services are protected and maintained for future human generations, and also maintain ecosystem integrity through considering ethical, economic, and scientific (ecological) variables. Environmental resource management tries to identify factors affected by conflicts that rise between meeting needs and protecting resources. It is thus linked to environmental protection, sustainability, integrated landscape management, natural resource management, fisheries management, forest management, and wildlife management, and others.
A sustainable business, or a green business, is an enterprise that has a minimal negative impact or potentially a positive effect on the global or local environment, community, society, or economy—a business that strives to meet the triple bottom line. They cluster under different groupings and the whole is sometimes referred to as "green capitalism." Often, sustainable businesses have progressive environmental and human rights policies. In general, a business is described as green if it matches the following four criteria:
Ethical living is the philosophy of making decisions for daily life which take into account ethics and moral values, particularly with regard to consumerism, sustainability, environmentalism, wildlife, and animal welfare.
The Code for Sustainable Homes was an environmental assessment method for rating and certifying the performance of new homes in United Kingdom. First introduced in 2006, it is a national standard for use in the design and construction of new homes with a view to encouraging continuous improvement in sustainable home building. In 2015 the Government in England withdrew it, consolidating some standards into Building Regulations.
Socially responsible investing (SRI), social investment, sustainable socially conscious, "green" or ethical investing, is any investment strategy which seeks to consider both financial return and social/environmental good to bring about social change regarded as positive by proponents. Socially responsible investments often constitute a small percentage of total funds invested by corporations and are riddled with obstacles.
The availability and uptake of green electricity in the United Kingdom has increased in the 21st century. There are a number of suppliers offering green electricity in the United Kingdom. In theory these types of tariffs help to lower carbon dioxide emissions by increasing consumer demand for green electricity and encouraging more renewable energy plant to be built. Since Ofgem's 2014 regulations there are now set criteria defining what can be classified as a green source product. As well as holding sufficient guarantee of origin certificates to cover the electricity sold to consumers, suppliers are also required to show additionality by contributing to wider environmental and low carbon funds.
ClimateCare is a profit for purpose environmental and social impact company known for its role providing carbon offset services, with a particular focus on using carbon and other results based finance to support its 'Climate+Care Projects'. It also provides businesses and governments with sustainable development programmes, environmental and social impact measurement and project development.
The British Environment and Media Awards, or BEMAs, were created by Media Natura, and are awarded by the World Wide Fund for Nature. The awards are open to any professional article, programme, website or campaign, written, produced or undertaken in the UK. Past hosts have included Angus Deayton, and Michael Fish.
This page is an index of sustainability articles.
A sustainability organization is (1) an organized group of people that aims to advance sustainability and/or (2) those actions of organizing something sustainably. Unlike many business organizations, sustainability organizations are not limited to implementing sustainability strategies which provide them with economic and cultural benefits attained through environmental responsibility. For sustainability organizations, sustainability can also be an end in itself without further justifications.
Sustainable products are products who are either sustainability sourced, manufactured or processed that provide environmental, social and economic benefits while protecting public health and environment over their whole life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials until the final disposal.
Sustainability marketing myopia is a term used in sustainability marketing referring to a distortion stemming from the overlooking of socio-environmental attributes of a sustainable product or service at the expenses of customer benefits and values. Sustainability marketing is oriented towards the whole community, its social goals and the protection of the environment. The idea of sustainability marketing myopia is rooted into conventional marketing myopia theory, as well as green marketing myopia.
Environmental certification is a form of environmental regulation and development where a company can voluntarily choose to comply with predefined processes or objectives set forth by the certification service. Most certification services have a logo which can be applied to products certified under their standards. This is seen as a form of corporate social responsibility allowing companies to address their obligation to minimise the harmful impacts to the environment by voluntarily following a set of externally set and measured objectives.
The Queen's Award for Enterprise: Sustainable Development is awarded each year on 21 April by Queen Elizabeth II, along with the other two Queen's Awards for Enterprise categories.
Environment and Ecology Bureau is one of the fifteen policy bureau of the Government of Hong Kong. The agency was established on 1 July 2022. The current Secretary for Environment and Ecology is Tse Chin-wan.