Our commitments to sustainability
Our ten institutional commitments
A strategic performance indicator of our Strategy 2025 is Environmental Sustainability, underpinning our global strategy and commitment to meeting the SDG goals, as outlined in our Ten Commitments to Sustainability.
Leadership Through Action
- We engage with our global staff, students, alumni and external communities in developing plans to advocate change.
- One of our key initiatives is the launch of our Climate Advocacy course.
Thought Leadership and Foresighting
- In 2022 The Hutton Series on Climate Changes brought together a diverse cross-section of speakers to identify ten key priorities, innovations & actions to mitigate the climate crisis. Hutton Series on Climate Change: Final Report | Panmure House
- Our Student Sustainability Forum initiative placed as a finalist by the 2024 Green Gown Awards in the "Student Engagement" category, recognising the work the University’s Global Environmental Sustainability team and the University’s Student Union officers have achieved with The Student Sustainability Forum.
World-leading research, teaching and enterprise
- We focus our distinctive learning principles in the University’s Global Changemaker Curriculum Framework as a foundation for embedding learning for sustainable development across degree programmes.
- We support student internships in sustainability related to themes of the Climate Action Framework.
- We engage staff and student with sustainable development learning across the curriculum and co-curriculum, to evaluate disciplinary, cross-disciplinary, and global campus involvement.
Our sustainability progress
Climate Action Framework
Heriot-Watt University's Sustainability Climate Action Framework sets out our approach to delivering on our institutional commitments and how we operationalise them.
Meeting the Goals
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) comprise 17 goals, including targets and individual actions.
Our global campuses
Our global campuses encompass a variety of settings across five locations and three countries from Scotland to Dubai and Malaysia. Each campus presents unique sustainability challenges and opportunities.
Latest updates on our progress
We are committed to making our activities more sustainable to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Find out below what what we're currently doing.
Our GES Strategy
Read more about our governance, strategy to achieving our commitments and our university sustainability policy.
Find out more