Our goal: to embed a culture of environmental sustainability within RUSU to ensure we lead by example, engage our students and protect our futures. This will be achieved alongside meeting the needs of our current students without compromising the needs of future students.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals are great guidance for the work that we do and the ways in which we engage our students.

We have loads of opportunities from our societies, running your own projects to coming along to one of our events that will inspire and support you to be more sustainable! Just a few of them are: Environmental Conservation, Vegan and Vegetarian and Zero Waste

  • Track and read more about Projects & Campaigns (below) on the Make your Mark page.
  • Veggie Pledge encourages students to think about eating more vegetarian and vegan food. This year, it ran alongside Veganuary and as part of the Make Your Mark campaign.
  • Think Before you Print invites students and staff at the University to think about how much they are printing and the impact their actions might be having on the environment.
  • RUSU has aimed to reduce food waste on campus this year by redistributing unwanted food to the community. RUSU now uses and encourages students to use an app which helps to redistribute unwanted food. The University Events Catering team have agreed to use the app, alongside RUSU Catering.
  • RUSU has successfully lobbied the University to affiliate with Electronics Watch. This means that the University will be protecting the rights of workers in their electronics supply chains. You can find out more by reading the article.
  • RUSU has successfully lobbied the University to full divest from fossil fuels. You can find more, including the timeline of milestones.
  • Strategic Operating Plan – The Environment section of the SOP outlines the commitments and aspirations RUSU wants to adopt for the next 3 years.
  • Crockery and Cutlery policy – This is a Change It! policy which provides an overview of how RUSU operates in line with the goals laid out in the SOP.
  • SMART Action Plan – as part of Green Impact, we were asked to produce a SMART Action Plan, highlighting the actions we are going to take to be more sustainable.
  • RUSU Environment audit – the Environment Committee carried out a department audit to assess our current processes and provide a way to measure our progress annually.