From embedding carbon literacy education into our ethos to enhancing our campus’ biodiversity, our Sustainability team have certainly been busy.

In fact, to highlight our passion and commitment to embed sustainability throughout the University, we launched the Academy for Sustainable Futures in 2022. With a core value of preparing our students to contribute to a just and sustainable future, we’ve pledged to embed sustainable education into every course’s curriculum.

So, when you graduate from Canterbury Christ Church University, not only will you be set up for your future, but you’ll be prepared with the knowledge needed to enhance and improve environmental sustainability wherever your future leads you.

What we’ve achieved so far

Over the last ten years, our staff and students have achieved an incredible amount. So much so, it won’t fit into just one blog post! But here, we’ll have a look at some of the awesome things our Sustainability team have achieved so far.

1. Winning the awards

In 2018, we won the award for ‘Continuous Improvement: Institutional change’ at the National Green Gown Awards. We then won this award just a year later at the International Green Gown Awards. This prestigious award recognises our sustainability best practices across the University.

In 2020, we won the Collaborate Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) and a University Team award for Teaching Excellence. This highlights the exceptional teaching that’s happening throughout CCCU, which brings us to our next point…

2. It starts with education. 

They say that to make real change, it starts with education – that’s why we’ve been busy providing education and learning opportunities to all our staff, students and the wider community.

Some examples include:

• offering Carbon Literacy training to all staff and students
• organising the international Sustainability in Higher Education Conference in partnership with Plymouth University in 2016
• funding over 100 Futures Initiative projects to enhance staff knowledge, skills, experience and expertise for sustainability
• hosting the Social and Environmental Justice for a Sustainable Future event for staff, students, and the community. This included interactive workshops and activities for everyone to get involved in.

We’ve also committed to embed modules into all of our courses’ curriculum. This began in 2021 with five courses teaching two modules: ‘Sustainability, Education and Action for Hope’ and ‘Social Justice and the Pedagogy of Freedom’.

3. Student Green Office - get involved and get paid!

The Student Green Office is a space for students to follow their passions and organise events, projects and offer peer-to-peer support to other students on their sustainability journeys.

What’s more, students are employed and are encouraged to pursue whatever they want to do (as long as it relates to sustainability of course) and are given the space to independently organise events that further our commitment to engage people in learning about sustainability.

They also have an awesome student-led blog that covers everything they’ve been up to. Check out the blog and see what the SGO have been up to.

4. Buy the best local, organic produce with the Veg Box Project. 

One of our favourite initiatives (because who doesn’t love fresh veg that’s affordable and locally produced?), the Veg Box Project allows you to order a veg box, which is then sent to our Canterbury Campus, all for just £6!

The veg is sourced from Ripple Farm in Wye, which is less than ten miles away from Canterbury, so we can rest assured that we’re all doing our bit for the environment whilst we enjoy some organic veggies.

5. Bask in the beauty of our wild campus. 

Our main campus is filled with beautiful green spaces and our wonderful Wilder Garden, all in a bid to enhance our biodiversity.

Our wild campus is filled with fresh flowers and tasty fruit that you can pick and eat from the trees. Not only is our Canterbury Campus delightfully inviting, thanks to our pretty flowers, but our biodiversity continues to grow year upon year.

Check out what else we’ve been up to to better our biodiversity and carbon footprint.

 

It’s one thing reading about the importance of sustainability and why we should prioritise this as a University. But it’s another to see what we’ve actually been doing to ensure that our staff and students work towards reducing our carbon footprint and continue to engage in education to fight against climate change.

As a CCCU student, there are plenty of opportunities for you to get involved. Here at CCCU, we’re on a mission to create and solidify sustainable futures for your and future generations.

And we hope to see you get involved with our Academy for Sustainable Futures if you choose Canterbury Christ Church University.