Social responsibility
We are currently ranked 14th in People and Planet's green league| and have been recognised by Universities That Count as having outstanding waste reduction and recycling.
We work in partnership with many local and national organisations, and social responsibility is the watchword for everything we do.
Giving a fair deal
We are a Fairtrade University, meaning we have made a commitment to support and use Fairtrade products. We also run awareness-raising events, which have included a visit by two Ghanaian cocoa growers to talk to students about how Fairtrade has helped their families.
Making a green impact
Green Impact is a fun project to encourage staff at DMU to adopt greener behaviours by completing simple environmental tasks. The project encourages university staff, in the spirit of friendly competition, to 'green their workplaces' by completing a series of environmental activities, including saving energy, recycling, raising awareness amongst colleagues and making greener travel choices|. Participating teams are awarded prizes depending on the number of environmental activities which they complete and DMU students are trained as special environmental auditors to check that teams have completed the activities to the required standard. Team are presented with their awards at a special Green Impact Awards ceremony.
IESD researchers have been taking their message of sustainable living to music lovers at festivals including Latitude and the Summer Sundae Weekender.
Local and international partnerships
DMU was an original partner of Leicester's successful bid to become the first 'environment city' in 1990. We have continued that partnership with the city and other organisations and are a member of the UN Regional Centre of Expertise for Sustainable Development as well as having chaired the former East Midlands Regional Assembly Energy Group. We are members of the Leicester Environment Partnership Board whose Expert Working Group is chaired by Professor Paul Fleming|.
Universities that Count
We understand that sustainability is much more than just an environmental issue, although this is a very important part. In order to take a more rounded approach to monitoring our progress on embedding sustainability, we take part in the Environmental & Social Responsibility (ESR) Index as part of Universities that Count (UtC). The UtC index measures universities' contributions and performance in the areas of environmental and social responsibility. It is based on the Business in the Community corporate responsibility model of assessment, which judges performance across several areas including environmental, community, workplace and marketplace.