Deadline: 31-Mar-21
The International Green Gown Awards – supported by UN Environment has been launched to any university or college across the world. Recognising exceptional sustainability initiatives being undertaken by the world’s universities and colleges, the International Green Gown Awards set the bar and put every learning institution at the heart of delivering the UN Global Goals.
The International Green Gown Awards in partnership with The Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), L’Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), International Association of Universities (IAU) and the Higher Education Sustainability Initiative.
Categories
All categories are open to any tertiary education establishment – including all post-16 year old educational institutions such as colleges, universities and learning and skills institutions globally.
- Benefitting Society: As anchor institutions in their communities and cities, universities and colleges benefit society in many ways. This category captures the powerful and innovative ways education institutions are realising their purpose in today’s society to benefit the lives of individuals, communities and wider society. Examples will range from economic, social and environmental impacts with organisations and sectors outside the institution where innovative new approaches to bringing positive benefit can be found.
- Next Generation Learning and Skills: This category recognises achievement in the development of academic courses, skills and capabilities relevant to sustainability. These can be vocational, undergraduate or postgraduate courses or related to wider purposes such as community involvement, global or environmental awareness or to support lifestyle changes. Examples of possible application topics include: Apprenticeships; Continuing professional development (CPD) activities; Skill-focused courses leading to professional or vocational qualifications; Informal adult learning; community learning; and short courses for practitioners; The development of new courses focused on some or all sustainable development issues; Adaptation of existing courses; Use of practical sustainability-related projects or other practical activities within courses; Work-based learning initiatives; Staff development.
- Student Engagement: This category reflects that students and staff must work together to achieve goals using “top-down” and “bottom-up grass roots” methods to achieve maximum understanding and engagement across an institution. This in turn aids student progress and allows for opportunities to gain transferable employability skills. It looks at both the student input and the staff commitment and the relationship between the two. It must be clear that initiatives include both staff and students (not just one party) working in partnership. Examples could include: Social media projects; Awareness and communication campaigns; Procurement actions; Sustainability reporting and websites; Volunteering activities organised by unions, societies and similar organisations within institutions; Community projects.
- Sustainability Institution of the Year: This category recognises sustained, whole-institution commitment and impact to becoming a sustainable organisation. To improve economic and social responsibility and environmental performance through a whole institution approach strategic sustainability activities through four main areas must be achieved:
- Leadership and Governance;
- Estates and Operations;
- Learning, Teaching and Research;
- Partnership and Engagement.
Generic criteria
To make a strong application please provide facts and figures to support your application and meet all the criteria within your chosen category. You should also include the following generic criteria:
- Demonstrate the impact of any measures taken;
- Provide quantitative clear data to support claims being made and include overall tonnes of CO2 saved;
- Demonstrate the impact of your initiative and show documented outcomes;
- Provide industry norm versus over and above requirements;
- Applications need to go above and beyond standard practice;
- Explain clearly how the project includes academic staff and/or professional sector staff/support staff and include numbers of others involved including students. Where students and staff are involved, as well as including the actual numbers, include how they were involved and what impact/influence they have had;
- If your initiative is a joint partnership or includes 3rd parties, provide details on the roles of all parties and state who is the main driver – and state if selected, the name of the partners as they should appear on the certificate/trophy – if appropriate;
- Explain any targets or KPI’s that are relevant to your application and any relevant costs/resources, inputs/outputs. For example: Before initiative:10% of students were engaged. After initiative: 70% of students were engaged;
- Small institution criteria is measured against an annual turnover of $50 million or below.
For more information, visit https://www.greengownawards.org/international-green-gown-awards