This guide explains how you can incorporate sustainable practices into your daily work routines for the benefit of people and the planet.
Use your space efficiently
As a member of staff at Bath, you’re part of a community of over 3,900 colleagues who all have different working patterns, approaches and accessibility requirements.
Our commitment to flexibility has great benefits for staff wellbeing, life-work balance and motivation. However, it can mean that spaces on campus are not always used efficiently.
This can lead to wasted energy, from heating and lighting buildings with few occupants, underused resources and even constructing new buildings unnecessarily.
The best way you can help us to use space more efficiently is to discuss with colleagues where space is being wasted in your department. You could think about:
- if your team hot desks, is this working effectively for everyone?
- if you don’t hot desk, could this be a practical option?
- are there any offices that could be shared with more people or teams?
- could a part-time or hybrid staff member share an office with another who works the hours they’re not in?
- how could communal spaces be better used?
- would it help to assign areas in the office for different types of working, like a collaborative working space or a quiet zone?
Follow our sustainable procurement approach
The best way to reduce the impact of our purchases is to buy fewer, and better quality, products and services.
If you have procurement responsibilities in your role, there are lots of ways you can reduce purchases while ensuring high quality in the things you do need.
Read our Buy less, buy better campaign to make sure you’re getting the most out of your purchases.
Make your meetings sustainable
Meetings are a common component of all of our jobs and they can be a great option for collaborative working, celebrating achievements and staying up to date with colleagues. However, there are lots of ways we can reduce the impact meetings have on the environment:
- create online or hybrid meetings to avoid travel where possible
- make sure meetings have a clear purpose and that all attendees know why they need to be there
- allow colleagues to decline in-person meeting invites if they feel their attendance isn’t necessary for the meeting to achieve its purpose
- avoid printing documents if you can share them digitally instead
- train your colleagues on how to use hybrid meeting rooms and devices, or request training for yourself
Reduce your energy use
As University staff, we have a unique role to play in addressing the climate emergency, through our education and research, but also through recognising our responsibility to reduce our own carbon emissions.
These actions may seem small, but they all add up and collectively we can make a difference. Make sure to:
- switch off all electronics when not in use
- switch off lights when you leave a room
- in the winter, wear more layers instead of turning up the heating
- in the summer, open windows and wear lighter clothes instead of relying on fans or air conditioning
- take part in holiday switch off campaigns in Winter and at Easter
The University’s Thermal comfort policy was introduced to reduce our energy consumption and the associated financial costs and carbon emissions. Read more about how the policy saves energy.
Be a sustainable traveller
Staff business travel and commuting each account for around 5% of our total annual carbon footprint.
Changing your methods of travel, from overseas trips to the way you commute to campus, can reduce your impact on the environment.
Through our Travel and expenses Policy, we provide guidance on travelling for business in ways that will lower our carbon emissions.
Some of the advice includes:
- using phone, email or video calls instead of travelling to a meeting
- taking a train rather than driving to another location outside of Bath
- considering car sharing where driving is the only option
Learn more about travelling sustainably:
Working from home
If your role enables you to work from home some or all of the time, you’ll likely have already reduced the impact of your commute. However, there are other ways you can be sustainable when you’re not on campus.
A lot of the advice we give to staff on campus can apply when working from home too. For example, you could switch to a renewable energy supplier for your home, and to reduce energy consumption:
- switch off lights and electronics when not in use
- work in rooms with the most natural light
- wear more layers in the winter before turning on central heating
- heat just the room(s) that you need to rather than your whole house
- cool your home in summer without air conditioning by opening the windows and keeping the curtains closed in the morning before the temperature reaches its peak