Sustainable curriculum

This principle commits to providing our students with the knowledge and skills they need to have a positive impact in the world and to contribute solutions to sustainability challenges in our local community and globally, in an equitable and just way.  

The principle is shaping a guiding framework and informing the system change needed to ensure that every student can study, research, work and participate in sustainability and climate issues as part of their degree. 

The programme draws upon the Quality Assurance Agency’s Education for Sustainable Development framework and the inclusion of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. 

Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs)

The SDGs represent the most pressing global challenges and the interdependence of environmental integrity, social justice, equality, and economic prosperity.  

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) framework

The ESD framework supports learners across all academic disciplines and subject areas to create and pursue visions of a better world.

It is vital that our students engage with global challenges in the context of their field of specialism and the sectors they will progress into. They should be equipped with the skills to contribute to multi and interdisciplinary groups to effect systemic change.

Previous recommendations

Recommendations made in last year's review have now been incorporated in the principle’s activity:

• We are taking a discipline specific approach to embedding, enhancing and creating student opportunities (eg the expansion of the Student Sustainability Research Conference, increasing Student Living Labs and recruiting double the number of Student Sustainability Architects undertaking Living Lab projects)
• We are increasingly working in partnership with peer institutions.
• We are actively creating a community of practice and network of advocates.
• We are taking the initial steps in developing a professional development programme.  
• We have engaged with the leadership of the University’s curriculum transformation programme, Curriculum Redefined (CR) to clarify the role of sustainability in the Leeds Curriculum and have begun work to feed into policies and processes.

New project team

Progress made in 2022/23

The principle has secured a full-time project manager and fractional allocations for academic leads for each of the four focus areas, with the last appointment being made in October 2023.  

The project team has been bolstered by fractional allocations across six Curriculum Redefined Transformative Educator roles, drawn from three faculties and six schools (four secured in 2022 and an additional two in October 2023).  

The team also now includes contribution from the Living Lab and Research Engagement leads from the Sustainability Service and Priestley Centre for Climate Futures respectively. Collectively, these appointments will enable the team to widen reach, impact and connectivity across the Climate Plan principles and Education Strategy programmes.

Focus areas

Focus area one

Provision of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) research insight, scholarly content that is discipline focused, and interdisciplinary and pedagogical to support curriculum development

Progress made in 2022/23

We have made significant progress with the Leeds Institute of Teaching Excellence (LITE) Fellowship, including; completion of a literature review, production of case studies and planning underway for dissemination events.

We have created a Leeds University Network for Sustainability in HE (LUNSHE); six network meetings have been held covering a variety of ESD topics including the LITE Fellowship, embedding social justice, sustainability skills and other topics; more than 100 staff follow these events and the associated MS Teams channel for academic and service staff.

We have developed a SharePoint resource with Student Sustainability Architects, engaging with staff and students on case studies.

Plans for 2024 

We will launch a programme of professional development that recognises discipline specific needs and routes into sustainability alongside the SDGs, sustainability skills and values; this will be developed in partnership with Curriculum Redefined and Organisational Development and Professional Learning (OD&PL) roles .

We will develop LUNSHE, include the student and employer voice where appropriate and develop a workshop with LITE to expand the model.

We will scope work to develop a library of sustainability resources and data sets available for student research projects. 

Focus area two

Student-led activities including Living Labs, dissertation projects and volunteering opportunities 

Progress made in 2022/23

We have undertaken work to provide and support students with opportunities to participate in the Climate Plan through Living Labs. A recent example being Digital Media student Gabriela Kiryluk using a media installation to explore how staff and students engage with climate change on campus. 

We held a Living Labs workshop with community organisations to better understand the sustainability challenges they face and opportunities for impactful student-led Living Lab projects to respond to these. 

We also secured funding from the Horizons Institute to pursue a Living Lab in collaboration with Leeds Development Education Centre and local schools in underprivileged areas of Leeds designed to enable teachers, pupils and their families to engage in carbon emissions reduction actions.

We led the delivery of the Yorkshire-wide Student Sustainability Research Conference as a carbon negative event and secured a Green Gown nomination.

This brought together a diverse student community from the 12 institutions within the Yorkshire Universities (YU) group. It received 113 student applications and included 46 student presenters and 60 academic posters. 

We extended our collaboration with YU to shape and engage students in a multi-university challenge competition.

Six students were selected to represent the University in the YU competition, having submitted proposals to embed sustainability in the University’s educational provision.

We increased the number of students taking up part-time roles as Student Sustainability Architects delivering impactful sustainability projects and Living Labs, across schools and services (33 in total).  

An example of this was student work in partnership with Careers to increase knowledge and awareness of sustainable careers and green skills.

The former Student Sustainability Architect was awarded the Green Gown Student Champion award 2023. 

We gathered insight into student attitudes and expectations in relation to curricular and experiential engagement with sustainability.  

We doubled engagement in the Students Organising for Sustainability Skills survey, (7th nationally for survey engagement, 489 respondents).

In 2022/23, 84% of respondents felt that sustainability should be embedded within every course (2023/24 data is currently being analysed).

We worked with colleagues to distribute other student-facing surveys related to sustainability, with a view to taking a more co-ordinated approach to understanding student perspectives.

This includes working with the University’s Community Engagement Network in Education, Research and Civic Engagement (CENTRE).

Plans for 2024

We will deliver Living Lab projects; including the Leeds 2023 commissioned Queering Climate Change international project, the digital twin of the Roger Steven Pond, and Schools’ collaboration.

We will develop new student Living Lab and capstone project opportunities on campus linked to our Net Zero pathway, and in response to the challenges the city and region faces, in partnership with the Net Zero City principle.

We will strengthen the opportunities for experiential and community-engaged learning opportunities through partnership working with Curriculum Redefined (CR) and CENTRE and embed engagement in global challenges and sustainability skills within these.

We will increase collaborative working with Outreach, Careers and Placements teams, with the project team offering Laidlaw projects and participating in the CR Surfacing Skills project.

We will widen the demographic of students engaging in sustainability opportunities.

We will increase partnership working with Leeds University Union societies.

Focus area three

Provision of sustainability and climate education within the curriculum

Progress made in 2022/23

We have contributed to Curriculum Redefined by running workshops and providing resources. We also provided a set of sustainability skills included in the Leeds Skill Matrix.

We have contributed to the group shaping the University’s new Discover and Explore elective offer. Sustainability is included as a central theme and students can engage with global challenges. 

We have contributed to a Faculty of Engineering pilot to test curriculum mapping software to collectively map SDG themes and accrediting body criteria. Evaluation of the pilot will inform the development of future curriculum mapping tools. 

We have launched a new one-hour self-study Introduction to Sustainability unit which is available to all students and staff alongside our long standing and updated Sustainability in Practice and Environmental Management System training units. The unit is designed to introduce sustainability in the context of the university and was linked to Welcome, Induction and Transition for first year students

We have launched an MSc in Climate Futures; as part of this, students will complete a sustainability capstone project and access Gair Wood as a Net Zero Living Lab resource.

In addition:

• Leeds University Business School also launched a Climate Action Training two-day eLearning masterclass for business school students
• an increasing number of modules are using SDGs in assessment eg group projects, challenge-based learning activities, with case studies being documented.  

Plans for 2024

We will contribute to shaping our institutional Discover and Explore offer and the delivery of a student Discovery Jam event focused on environmental, economic, and social justice.

We will review insights from the Faculty of Engineering SDG curriculum mapping pilot to inform next steps on increasing mapping opportunities across schools to gain greater insight on existing models and curriculum development opportunities.

We will strengthen partnership working through the CR strands to increase schools' engagement and advocate for ESD to be applied within QA curriculum review and approval processes.

We will scope the curriculum opportunities delivered in partnership with the other Climate Plan Principles. 

Focus area four

Strengthen our leadership position 

Progress made in 2022/23 

Our work was recognised at the Green Gown awards, which recognise the exceptional sustainability initiatives being undertaken by universities and colleges across the world:

• Gair Wood Living Lab (Highly Commended)
• award for our Student Champion
• Student Sustainability Research Conference (nomination).

In addition, we have:

• hosted the International Fair Trade International Symposium, creating opportunities for our staff and students to participate at the event and in the ensuing journal special issue
• presented the Sustainable Curriculum principle at the Advance Higher Education Learning and Teaching Conference
• co-convened the Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education (EAUC) Living Lab Community of Practice
• submitted our application to become member of the UN Global Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).

Plans for 2024 

We will identify opportunities internally and externally to share our Sustainable Curriculum approach and learning.

We will utilise the UN Global Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) for new staff to extend our influence in the sector.

We will complete recruitment, filling remaining gaps for additional CR roles and increasing School representation across the principle.

We will develop further resources at Climate Plan level to expand awareness of the principle across the staff and student community leading to positive advancement.

We will develop key performance indicators at the principle-level utilising available data to overcome the University-level lack of data on the wider curriculum.