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One of our ambitions as a Students' Union is to lead the way in sustainable practices and to ultimately become the most sustainable students’ union in the UK. We plan to do this through embedding principles of sustainability into all aspects of our activities and services, minimising our impact on the environment, and working with you, our students, to educate and empower all of us in the ways we can help minimise our impact on the planet.

Our sustainability work has been recognised as 'Excellent'

Green Impact Students' Unions (GISU) is a flagship sustainability support package and awards programme for students' unions, run by the environmental charity  SOS-UK.  

It’s designed to help unions run effective projects and campaigns, using our power as the student movement to create lasting change.

For 2024 we've been awarded the Excellent Standard award, the highest level possible, for the second year in a row, which reflects our progress on the Sustainability Strategy launched in 2022.

GISU Excellent Award Logo

Students' Union UCL has a really comprehensive sustainability plan and a wide breadth of sustainability work [...] It's great to see how well their existing work already aligns with Green Impact and how they're able to achieve such a wide range of sustainability outcomes

GISU

What we're doing

How we are achieving our sustainability goals

Leadership and strategy

Cover of Students' Union UCL Sustainability Strategy

Partnership and Policy

Four student society organised event adverts including from UCL GES, UCL Vegetarian and Vegan Soc, UCL Nature and Conservation Soc, and Climate Action Soc

Campaigning and Influencing

  • As part of our Climate Leaders campaign, in partnership with Sustainable UCL we host an annual Sustainability Leadership Conference for students including the opportunity to receive dedicated training and join our Sustainability Leadership Programme.
  • For the last two years our Students' Union president has attended the COP summit to represent and elevate the voices of students during this climate crisis. You can see their COP28 and COP29 summaries here.
  • In our commercial outlets we continue to champion reusables with our Ditch the Disposable. whereby we charge 50p for any single-use cup.

Outreach and Collaboration

Sustainability in our spaces

Our commercial department takes their responsibilities to put planet before profit seriously which is why they led the way in ensuring that Students' Union UCL became one of the founding members of the Sustainable SU's Charter. This coalition of students' unions from across the UK are dedicated about not only implementing sustainable practices in our own commercial operations, through championing low carbon nature-friendly operations, but in also inspiring and showing others how these practices can be successfully be implemented in our outlets and supply chains.

Other initiatives in our spaces include:

Image of tofu curry next to the words 'we're partnering with Klimato to understand the carbon footprint of your meal'

Sustainability spotlight: meet some of our suppliers and partners

We prioritise working with suppliers who share our sustainability goals, especially companies which are carbon neutral or carbon negative. Every month we shine a spotlight on one of these partners or suppliers stocked on our shelves to help raise awareness of the amazing work they do.

Hand holds out a pint of Toast in Institute Bar
We're working with Toast Brewing who use surplus bread in their brewing process and donate all profits to environmental charities.
Coffee cup next to oat and soya milk suppliers
Switching to oat milk can make a big difference, which is why our carbon neutral supplier Minor Figures is the default milk option in our cafés.
This B-corp include the super-fruit baobab in their juice shots making Unrooted as good for us as they are the planet.
Meet our carbon negative supplier of lemonade, Gunna, who are carbon negative and on a mission to get rid of single use plastic bottles.
SeaChange wine is a range of ethically sourced and environmentally conscious wines that support ocean conservation charities.