Sustainability at Univ

The College recognises how important it is for us to reduce our impact on the environment. There is both a climate and biodiversity crisis upon us and it is incumbent on us to act.

We recognise that the choices we collectively make will have an enduring effect on our carbon footprint, our biodiversity and on the people and communities that we interact with every day. It is important to us that we minimise our negative impacts and enhance the positive.

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Through the work of the College’s Sustainability Committee, we will develop and monitor the success of our Strategy which will in turn be supported by our Action Plan. The actions that we set ourselves will include ambitious targets across our collegiate responsibilities.

We will work with our students and staff to raise awareness, share our goals and listen to the concerns and contributions of our wider community. We are supportive of the University’s broader sustainability targets and will strive to work towards them.

The Governing Body will review the Strategy annually and we will publish our progress against our commitments.

Univ is a member of the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust.

From our Environment Reps

Committee Members and Records

Univ North

Species and habitat diversity have never before been so important on every scale than in today’s context as we try to manage the impact of climate change and global biodiversity loss. Sustaining and improving habitat and linking green corridors throughout North Oxford is a local and very real opportunity to help make a difference as we conserve our green space at Univ North.

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Our planning application for the development required us to provide a baseline audit and biodiversity net gain management plan. The OCC requirement on us was to achieve a 10% improvement post construction compared with the baseline audit. Our ecological plan which was presented to the Council suggested a 16% improvement in habitat; however, we felt that 16% was the absolute minimum we should seek to achieve in habitat improvement, and that we should be able to make a real improvement in what is called linear gain – hedgerows. We have a partnership now with Future Nature, the ecological consultancy half of the Berks, Bucks and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust. Their revised management plan for the site will help us to achieve the 20% they have asked for and we have committed to. We also committed to changing the diversity of the planting for all of our hedgerows to ensure they are “species rich”. We have already planted 100m or so of species rich hedgerow, full of native plants to support pollinators and to provide larval food sources. Small changes in the way we plant the site and how we manage it will have significant benefits for our wildlife. Future Nature will return to site periodically to ensure that we are on target to achieve what we have committed to. If we can, we will try hard to exceed the commitment. The baseline Audit and the Management Plan can be viewed below.

PDF Documentation
Preliminary Ecology Appraisal & Biodiversity Net Gain Assessment
Landscape & Ecology Management Plan

You can read more about the College’s vision for its complementary community, and our latest developments, on the Univ North page or read all of the our Univ North News.