Harriet Kingaby, communications consultant, Futerra Sustainability Communications

Weave sustainability into the curriculum and get students involved:Refurbishment and carbon management will bring about efficiency of resource use and cost savings, but can only take you so far. It is the engagement of your students and staff that will bring about long term improvements. Students will be paying more and therefore demanding more from their university experience. They will now have the added pressure of uncertainty and a sense of being ‘hard done by’ to their fears about starting university. They will want to know that the education they are receiving is of the highest quality and relevant to the wider world.

The real key for overcoming this issue would be engaging them with the challenges currently facing the university and wider world. This can be done using strong student societies, a curriculum with sustainability woven throughout and creating a sense of excitement about sustainability’s place in the wider world. Getting this right will harness student energy, ensure they leave with relevant skills and help universities solve the green challenges that face them at the same time.

Each university is different and has different needs, so start by implementing the common themes:

• Understanding: The need to consolidate their activities under a common banner and understand ‘why’ sustainability is relevant to them.

• Changing behaviours: A desire to affect behaviour change in terms of the way their buildings and facilities are used. Often they’ve got great carbon management plans and are changing their infrastructure, but need to change habits in order to achieve the reductions they need.

• Engagement: A desire to engage students, staff and the local community with what they’re doing.

• Social media: Understand social media. This is a really powerful tool for communicating with students in particular, but can be tricky to use. You usage must be tailored to your student body but things such as fun key messages, having a specific visual identity for sustainability, using champions and using social media as a two way channel are recommended.

Personalise your environmental message: The world is full of generic environmental statements and policies which are off-putting for the majority and often seen as ‘add ons’, not compatible with the main purpose of the institution. It’s also easy for them to be dismissed as unimportant (“What’s the environment got to do with my mathematics degree course?”) Your ‘why sustainability’ should be relevant to your institution, inspirational and bring all of your activity under one banner. See this TED talk by Simon Sinek on how great leaders inspire for ideas on how to develop this.

Develop a champions model: This is a fantastic way of effecting change as long as it is managed correctly. It is important that champions have a good understanding of their role and what they are setting out to achieve. Allowing champions the chance to run their own projects, set their own targets and learn new skills fosters innovation and intrinsic motivation. You also need to make sure that you give regular feedback on progress to avoid fatigue.

Resource: ‘Sell the Sizzle’! Instead of painting visions of hell, this Futerra guide will help you sell to your stakeholders a new vision of a ‘low carbon heaven’.