Sustainable

Sustainability sparks and requires innovation. To thrive within the finite resources of this planet we need to think in new ways about our priorities and how we achieve them. Connections to sustainability are essential for driving responsible change across the physical and digital university, as well as to enabling opportunities for growth. A future that is sustainable requires bold collaborations with partners from around the world, and the partnerships we nurture will be shaped by and will advance sustainability.

• To accelerate our transition we will incorporate sustainability into our vision for the University, our culture, and operations.
• We will support our whole community to make the informed personal and professional decisions required to contribute to a sustainable future.
• We will challenge and support all our academic disciplines to make a distinctive contribution to advancing discovery and learning in sustainability and the environment, as we champion interdisciplinary approaches in areas that will accelerate our transition.
• We will develop living lab opportunities locally and especially at the Eden Campus which can be implemented globally to demonstrate the outcomes delivered by connecting research, education, and community.
• We will influence the policy environment to establish the shared frameworks needed to deliver progress that is just at a societal level.

We will:

• Develop a context for world-class research which acknowledges its environmental impacts and seeks to minimise them. 
• Deliver more world-leading research that targets crucial themes in the climate and natural emergencies, and invest in key interdisciplinary perspectives that take on the complexity of acting on this challenge.
• Make use of our research to drive policy change in support of a fair, sustainable future for all, locally, nationally, and globally.

We will:

• Furnish our students and staff with the knowledge and attributes that make their lives, as well as the communities around them, more sustainable.
• Prepare our students for careers in a world where sustainability issues will dominate by enriching the environmental sustainability content of the curriculum with learning from our research findings.
• Develop a teaching environment in St Andrews that minimises its environmental impact, recognising the value of our global reach.

• Integrating sustainability in our governance and decision making at all levels, supported by accessible carbon footprint data as well as a life-cycle perspective.
• Accelerating progress towards carbon Net Zero 2035 and wider goals in the University’s Environmental Sustainability Strategy by implementing sustainable travel, procurement, energy management, and biodiversity plans.
• Investing in structures to support targeted research in the climate and nature emergencies and sustainability and enhance the impact of this research in education and society. 
• Providing all of our students and staff with learning opportunities to enable them to make the informed decisions required to reduce their carbon footprint and contribute to a sustainable future. 
• Ensuring that the frameworks which guide the development of our estate forward sustainability across our historical and ageing buildings as well as new investments, so that our physical environments serve future generations. We will eliminate the need for fossil fuels in our energy systems.

• Increasing opportunities for students and staff to develop skills and knowledge that enable them to take environmentally sustainable actions.
• External engagement and externally recognised impactful research activity in the fields of climate change, energy research, and sustainability.
• A reduction in carbon and greenhouse gas emissions directly and indirectly connected to our University operations and activities.
• The management of more of our land for biodiversity and the implementation of a mechanism to monitor species and plants.