Engagement
As a global education group, we recognise that to address global societal and economic needs and real-world challenges, we need to collaborate with our students, staff, communities and partners. This includes being transparent in our communication, taking responsibility for our actions and engaging widely with communities, strategic partners, staff and students.
Our Engagement Plan establishes where and how we engage and the foundations to ensure we have meaningful contact; to be able to inspire others, find partnerships and generate opportunities.
We monitor engagement activity by using the five levels of communication to record and monitor our engagement activity. Recording our activity this way allows us to demonstrate progression year on year.
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1
Sharing information
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2
Building understanding
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3
Identifying implications
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4
Gaining commitments
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5
Altering behaviour
How we engage
- Internal sustainability news items for staff and students help staff stay up to date.
- Our events run throughout the year and showcase sustainability topics to staff and students.
- We have a dedicated sustainability induction for staff and run various courses and networks to enable staff and students to gain skills and knowledge on sustainability. An overview of the training and support can be accessed within our Sustainable staff training document.
- External networks and groups including Coventry Climate Change Board, EAUC, SWM.
- We work with various student groups and work with the Your SU Sustainability Champion to ensure we engage students and promote initiatives.
- Internal sustainability working and project groups.
Events and campaigns in 2024/2025
Around 400 people participated in sustainability events last year, more detail can be viewed in our Sustainability Performance Report 2023-24.
- Green Week
- Community projects
- Welcome Week
- Zero Day
- Circular economy – Warpit, British Heart Foundation
- Biodiversity events
Internal communications and groups
See the Sustainable Development Government structure; we welcome staff in all roles to participate in groups and committees. Our Sustainability Champions Group has over 100 members and meets at least four times a year. As well as sharing practice and ideas the group also has guest speakers to provide inspiring case studies and information. Recent examples have been a talk by the community-run Pod Cafe and waste and recycling company Veolia.
Students are encouraged to participate in sustainability at Coventry University through the Sustainability Operating Group, the Ethical Investment Group, the Fairtrade Steering Group and the Education for Sustainable Development Steering Group. These groups directly inform policy and practice on these topics and through these students can input into the overall direction of sustainable development in the group.
Further information about student representation can be found on our Board of Governors and Committees page.
All students receive sustainability information on their AULA induction page when they enrol, and sustainability information is built into welcome packs when students move into university-owned accommodation. Additionally, the Sustainability Team recruit Sustainability Student Ambassadors who provide the opportunity for peer-to-peer student focused engagement projects.
Student-led initiatives
We are proud of the innovative work are students are carrying out on sustainability, as well as being included within formal learning, here are some of the ways students are engaging in sustainability through informal learning and ‘real-world’ experiences:
- Funding for enterprise. A share of £15,000 was awarded to winning pitches in a ‘Dragons Den’ style competition this year. The competition supported by Santander Universities UK, rewarded innovative ideas which included as AI-powered recovery assistant to support stroke survivors, an emergency preparedness kit to help families during crises such as natural disasters and a reusable geotextile for cleaning up oil spills.
- Students lead a range of audits at the university to gain feedback from the people who are most impacted by our work on campus. As well as taking part in learning on formal Environmental Management audits as part of their course, they also have the opportunity to join audit teams to check our work as part of the Responsibility Futures and Fairtrade Accreditations.
- We also support a number of students throughout the summer who wish to carry out audits on a range of sustainability topics providing recommendations for improvement. Our latest Student-led Audit Report provides further detail.
- Our team of Sustainability Student Ambassadors work with the Environment Team carrying our engagement activities and peer to peer communications while also gaining work experience.
In the community
Across our research we have forged strong ties to community organisations to ensure we are delivering impactful work for communities and society. Have a look at a few of our examples on our Sustainability and Resilience research page. We have a dedicated Research Centre for Healthcare and Communities who develop and lead research across the NHS, universities and partners, creating the key links between research, practice and education to make a difference to patient care at local, national and global level.
Our Enterprise and Innovation Team has sustainability as one of its key strategic focus areas. The Clean Futures Accelerator and Catalyst project supports SMEs in the West Midlands to transition to a ‘clean future’ through providing support and training on decarbonisation and sustainability and providing expertise and facilities to improve systems and products.
