Sustainable Accomodation

We have guidance and actions you can take to improve the sustainability of where you are living, whether you are in halls of residence, privately-rented or any other living situation.

You can find out if your university or halls provider is signed up to our student engagement campaign, which will give you additional opportunities to get involved, volunteer and win prizes.

Check out our advice on how to get a warm and efficient home

We have information on energy bills, house hunting, heating and energy saving to help you save money and have a warmer home.

• Access to exclusive resources and discounts included 90% off Charles Dowding's no dig online course 1.
• Chances to take part in closed competitions e.g. our annual Water Conservation Trust competition for up to £1500 to improve your growing site
• Opportunity to win free tickets to our annual conference

All you need to join the network is a growing site at your institution or plans to have one within the next 3 months.

Just complete our joining form, it's free!

In each episode, field-leaders from student liberation movements and academia deconstruct the exclusivity of sustainability activism and education. Episodes cover sexuality, disability, gender, class and race.

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We partner highly motivated students and recent graduates with forward thinking organisations to collaborate on research, placements and practical projects to progress economic, social and environmental sustainability. Start browsing the opportunities currently available at https://forgood.nus.org.uk/.

SOS-UK, alongside the National Union of Students (NUS), the University and College Union (UCU) and People & Planet (P&P) are calling for all UK universities and colleges to publicly commit to being net zero emissions for scopes 1, 2 and 3 by 2030 to tackle the climate emergency and ecological crisis.

We know that in order to have any hope of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees we need to commit to and start delivering these ambitious targets, and we've created an easy resource to see how your university or college is doing!

Check out your institutions target, and compare across the sector, at www.carbontargets.uk.

Our Invest for Change campaign supports students to call on their universities to reform investment practices to change the financial system.

We can run introductory workshops, introducing the issues with the current financial system and how students can change this through an Invest for Change campaign on campus. We also offer more detail campaign planning sessions, to kickstart your campaigns. We can tailor workshops to be relevant to your needs, just let us know.

Fill out this quick form, or get in touch with melanie.kee@sos-uk.org.

Everywhere you look companies are making sustainability commitments – but where is the action? What does net zero mean if you’re still funding new fossil fuel projects? What is ‘caring about the planet’ if you’re driving deforestation and displacement of communities?

AGMs– Annual General Meetings - are a chance to hold companies to account. All public companies have to hold them. Universities are often shareholders in these companies and can vote on shareholder resolutions – similar to policy committing the company to take action. Find out more more about what AGMs are on the Invest for Change website.

What can you do?

Sign (and share)our petition

Call for your university to support – use our template email to write to your VC

Is your university investing in Standard Chartered? Support Market Forces' shareholder resolution for no new fossil fuel funding with our template email

Apply to become an auditor for the Positive Impact scheme where you will join an online training session and carry out in-person environmental audits of Unite Students' properties in your city.

What’s the Positive Impact Scheme?

Positive Impact is Unite Students spin on SOS-UK's Green Impact, a sustainability accreditation scheme designed to engage staff and students to improve sustainability within Unite Students’ properties and across the business.

It guides and helps teams of staff and students to carry out initiatives that affect environmental and social change. By auditing Unite Students’ properties, you will help verify if they have carried out set actions to achieve their bronze award target.

This is an opportunity to be trained online in auditing by SOS-UK and learn more about sustainability. You will then need to put your new skills into practice by completing up to three 20 minute in-person audits of student properties in your city*. These in-person audits will involve leading conversations with staff working in the properties and can be managed in your own time, but must be completed within 72 hours of the online training. Auditors will be given guidance on how to access the properties and will need to plan their travel between the properties (walking, cycling or public transport unless you have any access requirements).

Training will take place via Zoom and you’ll only need to attend one session (breaks are built-in). The dates you can chose from are below. If you cannot attend at these times, still register and we will send you a video recording of the training to watch in your own time, and all supporting details. If you have any questions after watching the video you can join one of the sessions between 4 and 4:30pm.

• 24 March (2:30pm-4:30pm)
• 25 March (2:30pm-4:30pm)

*Unite Students' have properties in the following cities and therefore, you must be living in one of those listed so we can match you up with properties to audit:

Aberdeen, Bath, Bedford, Birmingham, Bournemouth, Bristol, Cardiff, Coventry, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Loughborough, Manchester, Medway, Newcastle, Nottingham, Portsmouth, Reading, Sheffield, Southampton

What’s in it for me?

Free IEMA approved online training will help you develop important employability skills including auditing, communication, decision-making, time management, planning and organisation. No prior knowledge or skills are needed and you will receive a digital badge from SOS-UK on completion of the auditing to showcase the skills you have utilised.

Where do I sign up?

To apply for this role and receive the joining details, complete this quick registration form: https://form.typeform.com/to/SfvsnExZ

If you have any further questions, please email zoe.arnold@sos-uk.org and kedijah.EavesOConnor@sos-uk.org

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UK universities have over £15 billion that is frequently invested against the interests of students and the world they will graduate into. As part of our Invest for Change campaign, email your University's senior management to ensure their investments are funding environmental and social justice solutions and engaging with investments to change corporate practices.

Use our template to write your email, and see our resources for further support.

UK universities have over £15 billion in investments, frequently invested against the interests of students and the world they will graduate into. These investment decisions are often left to externally appointed investment managers with little engagement from the university itself. It’s time to change this.

We need universities to Invest for Change, investing in environmental and social justice solutions and using their influence to push for wider change in the financial system.

Start a campaign at your university now - using our student campaign guide and starter checklist.

Get in touch by emailing melanie.kee@sos-uk.org for support!

Are you aged 10-14? Are you full of exciting ideas to help improve the environment and the community you live in? Join the Green Influencers Scheme to imagine, make, and share your own projects!

As a young person, you’re not just a leader of tomorrow – you can be a leader now. If you have ideas for getting yourself or your friends to connect with nature, we want to help you make those ideas a reality. As an environmental youth social action project this could include elements of volunteering, fundraising, campaigning or supporting your peers, but projects can be anything you like – for example, creating a community garden. You will be at the forefront of making and carrying out your project from start to finish. Our Green Mentors will be here to support you - to help you make connections in your community and to get funding to make it happen.

To get involved, please get in touch with your local Green Mentor:

• If you live in Southampton and surrounding areas, contact Holly.
• If you live in Norwich and surrounding areas, contact Alex.
• If you live elsewhere in England, you can locate your nearest Green Mentor on this map.

Colleges and sixth-forms:

Book our free workshop which will support students in choosing a more ethical bank account. Register here.

Students

Become a student ambassador for the campaign and help spread the word to your peers and beyond. Register here.

To further anti-racism understanding and work, holding a regular group with peers or colleagues may support discussions and learning on race equity. Participants could take it in turns to bring a topic to the group.

Check out the resources we've collated for our own group at SOS-UK (it is not exhaustive!). It forms part of our wider sustainability & intersectionality resource hub.

SOS-UK are offering an exciting training opportunity, open to all students who are currently private renting whilst at university, on home energy auditing!

The training will support you to develop transferable employability skills in communication,teamwork, time management, and organisation. You’ll then put your new found skills into practice by conducting audits of your own! You’ll also develop a better understanding of sustainability- supporting students to make changes that could improve their homes, reduce their energy bills, and support their wellbeing.

Attend online training on:

23rd or 24th February 2022, 2-5pm

Open to all students currently private renting whilst at university- no prior experience is needed, just a willingness to try something new! After completing the training, you will receive a £15 bursary for each completed student home energy audit, and a digital badge to demonstrate your experience.

Please submit your application by 22nd February 2022, 11:59 PM. Find more information and apply here.

Write to your elected reps here

Our current education on the climate emergency is not good enough. Students aren't being prepared to face the effects of climate change, or taught to understand the solutions for a crisis that will most impact our generation. But we can change this.

Sustainability and climate change need to be taught across the curriculum, equipping generations to come with the skills and knowledge needed for the green jobs of the future. A broad climate education will empower every young person to contribute to a more resilient, sustainable society.

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Follow our sustainability top tips
Get involved in our activities
Learn more about the climate crisis

Whether you live in halls of residence, with family, or privately rented accommodation with other students, there are a number of ways you can take action to be sustainable.

Sign up to our newsletter for more information

Inclusivity is central to sustainability but it is acknolwedged that some sustainability campaigns and initiatives do not meet the needs of liberation groups and often fail to address interlinking issues such as colonialism.

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To support an increase in understanding that the call for climate justice is also a call for racial, gender, queer, trans, disability and class justice, this hub lists various resources to steer sustainability work and communications, and will over time be developed to provide some examples of how students' unions are collaborating with liberation groups to steer their sustainabilty work. We have grouped resources into each liberation group to help organise them and guide you but several resources draw on the intersections across liberation groups. You could also view the NUS decolonise education library.
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Check out our Sustainability and Intersectionality Resource Hub