Colleges & Sustainability

What we are doing

Colleges are community leaders, major employers with significant responsibility for estates and buildings. They have a key role to play in mitigating the impact of their work on the environment.

We are supporting our members to transition through several pieces of work, including the innovative FE Climate Action Road Map which has already been adopted by over a third of FE colleges; we continue to offer regular webinars, briefings and updates.

We work closely with our commission partners EAUC who can provide colleges with information and advice.

We are developing information and resources to support colleges that cover key college areas such as the curriculum, governance and estates.

Education for Sustainable Development (raising awareness of carbon footprint and impact)

What we are doing

Colleges take seriously their responsibility for raising awareness of climate and sustainability issues. We believe all post-16 study programmes should make some reference to Education for Sustainable Development.

AoC Beacon Award for Sustainability: Education for sustainable development gives students the knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes to create a more sustainable and just society. This award celebrates colleges that have incorporated sustainable development into their teaching and operations,

Carbon Literacy Project: In 2018, BEIS funded the Carbon Literacy Project to work with Manchester Metropolitan University to develop a carbon literacy curriculum for HE and businesses. We recognised that there was a need for this to also be developed for FE and have developed an FE carbon literacy curriculum in partnership with the Carbon Literacy Project