Sustainability Reports

At UWS our vision is to become a sustainable, forward-thinking institution, where we strive to make significant and measurable progress towards achieving Scotland’s world-leading climate change legislation, targeting net-zero emissions of all greenhouse gases by 2040. We are committed to becoming a global leader in climate change and environmental resilience and continue to align our service delivery and world-leading research with the UNSDGs.

UWS has committed to placing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the heart of our Strategy 2025. UWS Strategy 2025 highlights the University’s commitment to tackling the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Our vision is for UWS to be among the global leaders of excellent, relevant and purposeful research aligned with the UN SDGs. Our goal is to become a leader in climate change and resilience through research and enterprise activity.

The UWS Sustainability Plan outlines our ambition to achieve a 20% reduction in carbon by 2020 and how we go beyond this in embedding Sustainability in Education and the wider student experience. The Plan highlights how we support our students, staff and local communities through Initiatives which have a positive impact on economic, social and environmental sustainability.

The UWS Sustainability Annual report 2018/19 highlights activity and progress against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the tremendous success in cutting our carbon emissions by 4670 tonnes of CO2e (42%) since 2012/13. This is double the targeted 20% by 2020 and testament to our vision to create sustainable, forward thinking environments, such as our award winning Lanarkshire Campus.

Extreme weather and climate change threaten to damage UWS premises and interfere with the systems we rely on for day-to-day business continuity. Developing and implementing our Adaptation Plan allows us to understand our vulnerability to current and future climate change, to recognise and assess the risks and also to identify research opportunities to further advance knowledge and understanding of our changing climate.