Nottingham Trent University wins impact award for sustainability

For a further year, the Nottingham Trent University (NTU) Sustainability Team has won the University Impact Initiative of the Year Award, facilitated by The Association of University Directors of Estates (AUDE). NTU's Green Rewards programme was recognised for both its significant impacts at NTU and subsequent roll out across Nottinghamshire.

The Association of University Directors of Estates (AUDE) promotes excellence in the strategic planning, management, operation and development of Higher Education estates and facilities.

"Well done to everyone involved in our Green Rewards programme!" said NTU.

Encouraging more sustainable actions

The Green Rewards programme from NTU is an app/platform designed to reward, incentivise and engage staff and student users around more sustainable and wellbeing actions they can take in their own lives and at work, across a wide range of themes - from travel to food to nature to responsible consumption and more - that will collectively contribute significantly to acting on the climate change challenges faced.

An ever-expanding reach

NTU’s Head of Sustainability Charmaine Morrell [pictured above] explained, Green Rewards was launched at NTU in 2019, but has since expanded dramatically as Green Rewards has been rolled out at the University of Nottingham and also to all local authorities within Nottinghamshire. This means that collectively the Nottinghamshire county can report, not only on the number of positive actions that are taken, but on combined carbon savings too.

“The Universities for Nottingham civic agreement was instrumental in making that happen,” said Charmaine. “It’s a format that we can use to collaborate on high-level projects like this, and it has really worked to give momentum to a county-wide roll-out. There’s no equivalent response anywhere else at county level in the UK. The app itself helps steer participants towards sustainable lifestyle choices, and there’s a gamification aspect whereby rewards are available – everyone involved can capture their positive actions and involvement level and translate that to carbon savings. You can work out your own carbon footprint and get signposted to advice on those themes that most interest you whether that be recycling, FairTrade or fast fashion. With Nottingham City Council’s known and ambitious carbon neutral target year of 2028, the very progressive Council is keen to engage the public with initiatives like this, and that knocks on to those developers wanting to work with us being keen to show leadership in this area too.”

Positive actions by staff and students

Simon Smith, Interim Director of Estates at NTU, pointed out that by March 2022 the Green Rewards programme at NTU was responsible for carbon savings of 432,860 kg through 217,000 positive actions that staff and students have made. “We’d really like to thank NTU’s staff and students for getting behind the programme with such enthusiasm – that in turn has helped us influence across the local authorities across Nottinghamshire. The entire University, estates and sustainability teams are right behind this project and have given it fantastic support, and the platform provider, Jump, and our colleagues in the local authorities and at the University of Nottingham deserve a huge share of the credit for this AUDE Award too.”

On behalf of the judges, Jane White (AUDE Executive Director) said: “Increasing public understanding of the issues around climate change and environmental sustainability is increasingly turning into pressure to make visible and meaningful change – but the public also needs to be shown easy and realistic ways for them to make their own impact. The Green Rewards app does that. This is the second year in a row that the NTU team has won the Impact Initiative award – that’s a fantastic achievement and whether it spurs them on to a golden treble next year we will have to wait and see. Many congratulations to all concerned.”