University of Westminster makes progress on UN Sustainable Development Goals

Over the past few years, the University of Westminster has been working toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs address various social, environmental, and economic challenges such as poverty, gender inequality and employment.

The SDGs help to make the University a sustainable, responsible, and inclusive place to live, work and study. We have highlighted some of our key milestones from this year below.

Times Higher Education Impact Rankings

The University was recognised as one of the top 20 universities in the world for supporting gender equality, according to the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings 2021.

The University also ranks in the top 25 globally for supporting reduced inequalities. Both of these fantastic results demonstrate the hard work being done across Westminster to reduce inequality both within our University and across society, and rewards the hard work of colleagues as we strive to create fairer opportunities for all.

Westminster is further recognised as one of the top 50 in the world for supporting responsible consumption and production. This impressive performance reflects Westminster’s commitment to the values set out in the SDGs which recognise that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.

SDG Accord

The University of Westminster is now a signatory to the SDG Accord which is the University and College sector’s collective response and commitment to the SDGs.

As a signatory, we have made a public commitment to do more to deliver the goals, to annually report on our progress, and to do so in ways which share learning with others both nationally and internationally.

Ethical and Sustainable Investment Policy

The University of Westminster has published an Ethical and Sustainable Investment Policy for the first time, demonstrating its commitment to responsible investing.

This includes investing in organisations and countries that demonstrate a positive approach to individuals, communities and environmental performance and those that develop environmental technologies to reduce the impacts of polluting and destructive industries and climate change.

The policy also ensures the University will not invest in businesses where the investment might be considered to be unethical or conflict with the aims of the University. It also prevents investment that might hamper the work of the University.

Green Fund

The University’s first ever Green Fund scheme was launched successfully by our Centre for Education and Teaching Innovation (CETI) with five project teams being awarded a total of £16,659 in funding.

Project proposals included a robotic sorting platform that can facilitate the sorting of recyclable waste to hydroponic systems on campus to grow our own vegetables.

The project teams will now have until the end of June 2022 to complete their projects and present their work during the next Learning and Teaching Symposium hosted by CETI each summer.

SDG Webpage

To communicate our commitment to the UN’s SDGs, a new SDG webpage was developed this year. The page currently includes information on how our teaching and learning, research and knowledge exchange, and operations link to the SDGs at the University of Westminster.

The SDG webpage will continue to be developed throughout 2022 to link all of of the University's priority areas to the SDGs such as Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), Well-being, Business Engagement, Employability, Student Experience and so on.

SDG Report

To read more about the progress the University has made on the SDGs in 2021, read our SDG Annual Report 2020-21 which provides a summary of the new initiatives we developed to progress on our SDG agenda, as well as case studies on how we are contributing to each SDG.

Speaking about the progress that has been made so far, Dain Son Robinson, Sustainable Development Goal Coordinator at Westminster, said: "Although we have made a lot of progress this year, we have only scratched the surface and our work is only just beginning.

"Our future work will consist of developing a comprehensive education for sustainable development strategy, linking the SDGs to our Virtual Research Environment for our researchers, linking the SDGs to all of our operational plans and activities, and continuing to raise awareness of the SDGs and why they are important to all of us at the University of Westminster."

To find out more, please get in touch with Dain at [email protected].