City launches its Student Sustainability Office!

City launches its Student Sustainability Office!

A recent study by SOS-UK has shown that 90% of students are concerned or very concerned about climate change, but we want to understand what City’s students think!

The Sustainability team at City is putting together a Student Sustainability Office. The Office will be made up of five students (representing the five City Schools) who will work together for 10 weeks to provide opportunities for students to share their views on sustainability issues at City. This work will help to inform new and existing engagement activities to ensure they align with students’ post-covid views on inequalities, sustainability, social justice and climate change.

Supported by the Sustainability team, the Student Sustainability Office will lead on reaching out to the wider student body on a range of sustainability themes through methods such as focus groups, surveys and events. They will be tasked with analysing the data gathered from these activities to help inform a sustainability engagement plan and identify the key priorities for the Sustainability team going forward.

Rationale

Typically, ‘corporate’ sustainability communications are opt-in and result in a self-selecting group of already engaged students. A new approach must be created to expand this community and support students in making connections between their interests and wider global issues. Climate change is a social justice issue and disproportionately affects the most marginalised communities. We believe students are passionate about these issues and this initiative provides an opportunity to explore their concerns further.

The project is designed to gain a deeper understanding of student views and develop a cohesive community, following two years of disruption, change and increasing attention and awareness of sustainability issues.