12 May 2016 | Herpreet Kaur Grewal

The Association of University Directors of Estates (AUDE) has launched a ‘Green Scorecard’ to help universities make their estates more sustainable.

The Green Scorecard is designed in partnership with the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges (EAUC) and aims to be a comprehensive tool to help higher education institutions across the UK measure the sustainability work they do, set targets and benchmark.

Estate teams at universities must have sector-wide accurate data “to ensure continuing progress and innovation in achieving carbon reduction and other environmental sustainability targets”, says AUDE.

The AUDE Green Scorecard has been designed independently by Arup, based on consultation and feedback from both AUDE and EAUC members, to create “a fit-for-purpose benchmarking, management and planning tool”.

It has been developed with flexibility to recognise and reflect the size, location and specific individual institutional specialisms. The tool will focus on topics including: energy; transport; water; waste; adaptation; biodiversity and landscape; procurement and management. Online reports in these areas can be produced to aid and inform the development of estates and environmental sustainability strategies.

Trevor Humphreys, chair of AUDE said: “The scorecard will give us a very effective and transparent way to set targets, monitor performance, to showcase best practice and to highlight areas where we can improve. We have worked closely with EAUC to create an objective scorecard that will grow year on year and we are excited to develop our partnership further.”

Iain Patton, chief executive at EAUC, said: “[The new scorecard] aims to provide the sector with assurance about the significant environmental progress that many universities have made and impetus to do more.”