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In 2015, the United Nations outlined 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of their 2030 agenda, envisioning a world of universal respect for human rights, in which every country enjoys inclusive and sustainable development. Accomplishing this vision will require an unprecedent amount of cross-sectoral collaborative work and strong determination from the University of Sussex itself and parties across the globe.

Here is a scary thought: there are only six years left until 2030. But fear not! Here at Sussex, we have been keeping track of all the wonderful things our community has been and is currently doing to achieve the SDGs.

For the past four years we have been working with staff all across the University to gather hundreds of datapoints, ranging from best practice case studies to research and operational metrics for our Annual Sustainability Report, which informs our Times Higher Education Impact Rankings submission.

The Impact Rankings take on the monumental task of assessing universities’ progress against each Sustainable Development Goal and across 200 performance indicators. As the University’s Senior Sustainability Policy and Performance Officer, I have the privilege of collating all this data internally for the submission, alongside other members of the Sustainability Team.

Our league table position relies on data and performance from hundreds of areas across the University, so helping staff to collaborate with us and commit to providing their information is vital for the success for our success. So on Thursday 04 April, we gathered a group of over 25 representatives from professional services, academic services, and the Students’ Union in a workshop to discuss how we can improve the process of collating the data and performance of our SDG indicators each year.

Participants were split into five groups looking at collections of closely related SDGs. We looked at our current performance, and asked attendees to think about challenges we could face when trying to address the SDGs, as well as to tell us about any ongoing initiatives that we should be tracking and highlighting.

My favourite suggestion for performance improvement was in relation to SDGs 6 and 14, looking at engaging with The Aquifer Partnership for water management and conservation of aquatic ecosystems related initiatives, such as creating rainscapes and water gardens. Firstly, I had no idea I was on top of an aquifer, let alone that around 400k people in Sussex, including myself, rely on it for drinking water, so it was amazing to learn what we can do collectively to protect it.

It was great to hear that we have even more great sustainability related research and case studies happening across the University than we knew, however a key piece of feedback was that improvements need to be made to how these are communicated, as well as to enhance collaboration.

I want to thank everyone that joined us at the workshop, conversations were very lively, and it was inspiring to see how everyone was fully engaged and focused on finding solutions to enable progress on campus and in our local community. The success of the workshop was evident by all the great suggestions we received and I am excited to take them forward as we prepare for the next publication and submission cycle.

The University remains committed to becoming one of the most sustainable in world, but we recognise we can only get there with your support. Our data collection cycle runs from April to October, if you would like us to highlight your SDG work in our Annual Report or have any other recommendations please get in touch with us: sustainable@sussex.ac.uk

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