Sustainability engagement

Contact sustainability@keele.ac.uk or speak to Alana Wheat, Sustainability Engagement Officer.

Nature Positive Universities is a growing network of higher education institutions from across the world, working together to promote nature on our campuses, in our supply chains and within our communities. 

We depend on nature for our survival, and nature depends on us. This is a critical time to stand up for nature. As one of the largest campuses in the United Kingdom we understand this responsibility. 

Facilitated by KeeleSU, Keele Grounds, and Green:Keele the Campus Green Team is a group of volunteer students and staff who carry out litter picks, monitor biodiversity, reduce invasive species, and other conservation tasks across the campus. We need student leaders to help support this!

The Nature Positive Universities Alliance is a global network of universities prioritising nature restoration. Launched by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the University of Oxford in partnership with the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Join #GenerationRestoration.

In 2022, Keele University was one of two universities to receive Platinum standard for Hedgehog Friendly Campus.

Starting in 2019, led by Wildlife Society student volunteers, Keele became one of the first universities to achieve Hedgehog Friendly Campus Bronze accreditation for demonstrating positive action and achievements to protect and promote this native species on campus.

Hedgehog Friendly Campus is a national project funded by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society that aims to turn university campuses into a place where hedgehogs can thrive. Hedgehogs are in decline and need our help. 

Keele Hedgehog Friendly Campus Group’s mission is to make the campus safe for hedgehogs and to promote habitat for them to thrive. We can do this by keeping the campus litter free, with connected habitats and provisions for hedgehogs to find food and water as well as shelter.  

Anyone can get involved, from students and staff, to local residents and student societies. The success of the campaign so far has been thanks to collaboration between Green:Keele, KeeleSU, Student Services, Estates & Grounds, Keele Wildlife Society and the local residents association. You don’t need any prior knowledge or experience. Every step helps to raise awareness for hedgehogs and other wildlife on campus and enables Keele staff and students to play an active role in helping hedgehog populations to recover.

• Bronze (2019/20)
• Bronze (2020/21)
• Silver (2020/21)
• Gold (2021/22)
• Platinum (2022/23) 

Keele's Sustainable Student Bungalow can be found by Barnes Halls and gives students the opportunity to live sustainably during their studies. 

Four housemates live in the Bungalow each year, and run their own sustainability project, host events and activities, monitor their waste and energy, and grow their own food in the polytunnel and raised beds. 

In 2011 four students from the BSc in Environment and Sustainability programme lobbied the University for the opportunity to live in house on campus that they could turn into an ‘exemplar’ of sustainable student living, giving them the opportunity to ‘live what they are learning’ and to use the house to encourage other students to live more sustainably.  

The students moved into a standard bungalow on the University campus in September 2011.  Throughout 2011/2012 the students have built a substantial vegetable garden with funding from the Keele Key Fund, have monitored their energy use, segregated and monitored all of their waste production, and explored collaborative consumption and behaviour in their day-to-day living. 

The students disseminate the project through various ways from Instagram, Facebook, to Keele student magazine Concourse, student blogs, and externally through the Sentinel newspaper, Radio Stoke and BBC News.

Click here to fill in an application form and follow the current residents on this Facebook page.

Students and staff at Keele University have the opportunity to become Carbon Literate.

Carbon Literacy is relevant climate change learning that leads to positivity and action towards reducing carbon emissions. The Carbon Literacy Project works to provide you with access to this learning so that you can become certified as Carbon Literate.

What is Carbon Literacy? 

“An awareness of the carbon dioxide costs and impacts of everyday activities, and the ability and motivation to reduce emissions, on an individual, community and organisational basis.” 

More than just small personal changes, Carbon Literacy highlights the need for substantial change and supports you, as an individual, to have a cascade effect on a much wider audience – whether it’s in your workplace, community, school, university, place of worship, or another setting.

Feedback

"If there is one training you do this coming year it needs to be this one... it will change the way you think!" - Helen Cuddy, Commercial Business Development, Events and Conferencing

"One of the best workshops in Keele University." - Carbon Literacy Project Learner

"The presenter was excellent and really knew their topic. The structure of the program is really about moving people to action rather than education about the basics." - Carbon Literacy Project Learner

"Being Carbon Literate is a great step to take if they are interested in climate change or helping the planet. Anyone at Keele University is able to complete these workshops and it is definitely a step forward in the right direction with becoming more knowledgeable and involved in our own carbon footprint." - Carbon Literacy Project Learner

"It's a great training initiative and collaborative exercise to do with others to learn and empower yourself against the tackles ahead." - Carbon Literacy Project Learner

"It gives you lots of information that can be used in social and home life as well as in work scenarios." - Carbon Literacy Project Learner

Click here to register for a Carbon Literacy at Keele workshop.

Click here to register your interest in volunteering to become a workshop facilitator.

The PHRC is a student-led initiative originally founded in 2019 and is a metric-based tool for evaluating and improving planetary health content in health professional schools. Students from the schools of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Physiotherapy are encouraged to take part. 

The report cards produced assesses medical schools in five key areas: curriculum, research, community outreach and advocacy, support for student-led initiatives and campus sustainability. 

With every completed cycle, schools can monitor progress and strive to improve their score and ranking with each coming year. 

Students from the schools of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Physiotherapy are encouraged to take part.

Click here to find out more.

Earth Stories Film Festival is a Keele University based environmental film festival aimed at young filmmakers (14-25 years old). The festival is a student-led initiative that provides a platform for students and young filmmakers from across the world to showcase their filmmaking talent. The event is managed by students from across the university and supported by staff from across academic disciplines. The festival will present new and inspirational stories addressing the climate crisis, natures degradation, and highlight pathways for sustainable futures through human-natures reconnections. This festival was originally funded by former Keele University students through the Alumni Keele Key Fund. 

Click here to find out more.

Click here if you would like to volunteer to support the Festival.

Great Donate is a student-led campaign that takes place during halls move out time periods. The campaign collects usable items that students do not want or are unable to take home with them.

Clothes can be donated via the British Heart Foundation big red donation banks located at each Hall, all year round.

Unopened non-perishable food can be donated at the Keele Chapel which goes towards local food bank charities.

The Great Donate is organised by the Keele Students Union, stalls take place during Welcome in September / October and again in January to ensure that you have every opportunity to get budget-friendly, and zero-waste usable second hand items.

Keele University run catering outlets have relaunched the 'Drink, Rinse, Repeat' Reusable Cup Campaign that aims to reduce single-use cup consumption and waste across campus. Water refill stations and fountains are located across the campus.

Over 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups are used in the UK every year. Disposable cups are made from a combination of paper and a plastic lining to make them waterproof, but this mixed-materials product make coffee cups difficult to recycle, and infrastructure within the UK to recycle these cups is minimal. The plastic lids are also made from a type of plastic that is not collected as part of the University's waste and recycling service. Disposable coffee cups also require large amounts of water to process trees into paper, so as well as tackling plastic waste, switching to reusable cups can save water and reduce on carbon emissions produced from transporting and disposing of single-use packaging!

• Will there be a discount when I use my own cup? Every time you use your reusable cup for a hot drink from University run catering outlets you'll receive a 15p discount!
• Can I rinse my cup on campus? Staff can rinse cups in the kitchens in their buildings and the kitchen in the Chapel can also be used to rinse cups. The Students’ Union is currently looking into an additional facility for students to rinse their cups. Unfortunately the catering outlets are unable to rinse cups for capacity reasons
• Why not switch to compostable cups? Although there are compostable cups on the market, they cannot be composted in normal food waste composting facilities. These cups only compost fully in specialist industrial composting facilities which still require further investment in the UK. The campaign also wants to reduce overall disposable waste, rather than create a different type of disposable waste on campus.

In the Spring of 2012 the approval was given for an allotments scheme on the University campus.  Discussions had been underway about such a scheme for some time and the University’s Executive Committee recognised that it fits well with Keele’s Strategic Plan commitment to ‘develop an environmentally aware and sustainable outward facing campus community’.  More specifically, there is a commitment in the University’s Environmental Policy to ‘support the development of staff and student allotments to promote engagement with local food and the food life cycle’. 

The site has been developed in the Walled Garden on campus.  Historically, this area was used to grow food for the Sneyd family (the landowners at the time and resident in Keele Hall in the 19th Century), and, more recently, to grow plants for commercial purposes. 

The site was originally carefully selected and designed for optimal growing conditions.  However, since foundations were laid to allow the construction of greenhouses against the high back wall, it was determined that the most effective way of using the area was to create a series of raised beds.  

Construction took place over the Summer 2012  – in spite of driving rain which at one stage left the site looking like a bog!  However, there are now 11 raised beds in place, nine of which are tended by a group of allotments holders who are staff members, students and local community members. 

Launched in 2013, student volunteers and interns worked on the garden and shared the harvest across Keele. Students lead on the two allotment beds closest to the Walled Garden gate. With no prior experience needed it was a great opportunity to learn about growing food, eating healthy and volunteering on campus.

In early 2020, herbs were planted in the Chancellor’s courtyard ‘Quadrangle’ to be accessible to all and have fresh herbs available for cooking. The herbs included rosemary, lavender, bay, thyme, mint, sage, and tarragon.

The Edible Campus initiative was a partnership between SportsKeele, Keele Grounds, Green Keele and KeeleSU student officers and volunteering which located hexagonal concrete planters across the university next to Lindsay, Horwood, Barnes and Oaks Halls of Residence. The planters contain fruit trees which are cared for by volunteers and Keele Grounds. The planters can be located using this map.

Keele are part of the Students Organising for Sustainability (SOS UK) Food and Growing network which provides advice and support to students involved in campus gardening.

The Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Climate Commission was co-founded by Keele University following a Staffordshire Sustainability Leaders Summit held at Keele in November 2021, as part of the University’s celebration of the International Climate talks (COP26) being held in Glasgow that month. Other founding members included Staffordshire County Council, Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce, the National Farmers Union, the Globe Foundation amongst others. The Commission has grown in strength and number, including engagement with the NHS and Staffordshire Police, Staffordshire Community Energy, Staffordshire Business Environment Network, Support Staffordshire, as well as many individual District and Borough Councils, and Stoke City Council.

The Commission represents a multi-sector network covering public, private and third sector organisations, which aims to accelerate action on climate and nature recovery through creating connections and dialogue between those who would not otherwise meet. The Commission meets every two months, with a regular ‘knowledge exchange’ from an external speaker, followed by sharing of activities and challenges, in order to maximise synergies and opportunities to accelerate action. The Commission has brought funding to Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, created policy responses, and developed new collaborations linking sustainability to skills, energy, health, and land use amongst other areas.