The Brief

CHANGE AGENTS and the National Union of Students, working with other stakeholders, delivered the DEFRA funded Degrees Cooler Project to foster pro environmental behaviour change in 20 Universities across the country. The project used change agents in the form of Greener Living Assistants (GLAs) to embed key sustainability initiatives including reducing electricity, increasing recycling, reducing aviation transport in a university environment by engaging staff, students and local businesses whilst coordinating volunteer groups to promote behaviour change across the university communities. Some of this was achieved through a programme called Green Impact, which is still delivered by CHANGE AGENTS in conjunction with the NUS.

The Partnership

Engaging CHANGE AGENTS’ key principles of Education for Sustainable Development and building on our past Sustainable Colleges project and experiences, a broad partnership was created  to deliver Degrees Cooler. Along with CHANGEAGENTS the National Union of Students partnered up to deliver the Degrees Cooler Project (funded by DEFRA’s Greener Living Fund), in association with People & Planet, Student Switch Off, EAUC, and the London Sustainability Exchange.

The Results

• 15,000 staff in over 350 departments actively involved in greening their department through Green Impact Universities
• Green Impact Universities has trained up over 300 environmental auditors, many of whom were students
• Over 6,000 students have actively been involved in on-going behaviour change campaigns at universities