You are here

  1. Home
  2. Our Commitment to Sustainability

Our Commitment to Sustainability

Blue Skies over The Open University's Berrill building in Milton Keynes. The sun bursts up from behind the OU signage and trees.

Our commitment to Sustainability is enshrined in The Open University’s strategy ‘Live and Learn’.

By 2030 we shall be confident that:

  • Our creation and sharing of knowledge and skills enriches and transforms society, enabling our students to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals which are visible in our curriculum, our research and our enterprise activities.
  • Our student-centred pedagogy enables responsible behaviours and disruptive innovations. 
  • Our teaching model is low environmental impact and we transparently report on this.
  • Our course content and resources, across all disciplines, challenge unsustainability and exemplify sustainability through theories, application, stories and practice - ensuring 21st century transformative competencies.
  • Our students turn to us for multi-disciplinary lifelong learning, upskilling and reskilling for decarbonisation, decolonisation and the just transition to a sustainable society.
  • Our research is recognised for its policy influence and impact which enables implementation of sustainability in all areas of society.
  • Our stakeholders see us as a trusted source of informed debate and holistic understanding through a range of contemporary media and partnerships.
  • Our staff proactively engage to embed sustainability in all roles, meeting or exceeding legislative requirements across our business operations in the four nations.

We commit to:

  • Focus sustainability activity on the role of OU as educator: the creation and sharing of knowledge to respond to the green skills gap and support the just transition to a renewable energy economy, whilst ensuring legal compliance for OU as business: direct carbon emissions, travel and supply chains across the four nations, responsible finance and a climate resilient campus and services.
  • Adopt a ‘levelling up’ approach to benefit from good practice in the four nations including: in Scotland the Climate Change Adaptation legislation, in Wales the Wel-lbeing of Future Generations Act and the Civic Mission framework and in Northern Ireland the application of deliberative democracy as well as the UK’s collegiate network the Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges (EAUC)