The Sustainability Team has opened up a number of key strategies for consultation to get student and staff’s say on sustainability at the University.

The University has a number of operational strategies that support our transition to a more sustainable institution which are due for renewal this summer. The Sustainability Team are running an open consultation on some of these strategies as they go through the process of being refreshed over this academic year. The strategies are owned by a number of departments across the University including the Estates Department, the Safety, Health and Environment and Kent Hospitality.

The strategies include our Carbon Management Plan; Sustainable Food; Landscape and Biodiversity; and Waste and Recycling strategies.

The Sustainability Team have put together a consultation form for each strategy asking for students and staff to input their thoughts and ideas on a number of sustainability issues across our operational work. Collaboration is key to the work that we do in the Sustainability team and we need to hear from staff and students across the organisation to help us navigate the complex road to sustainability.

Reponses from these forms will be collated by the Sustainability Team and fed back to the strategy owner where they will be reviewed. Not all responses and ideas will make it in to the final strategies as decisions around affordability, timescales and achievability will have to be made. However, we are hopeful that we can get a real insight into your priorities that we can then reflect in our short and longer term targets, as well as integrate ideas that we would not have come up with ourselves.

The initial consultation will be open for 4 weeks closing on 19 March . Full details of the timeline and links to the consultation forms can be found on our website.