Research
A report from the University’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, ‘Roadmap to Super Low Carbon Live Music’, successfully supported Massive Attack in delivering the lowest-carbon live music event of its kind. Commissioned by the band, the roadmap set out clear, measurable targets for the live music industry to significantly reduce its carbon footprint and align with the Paris Agreement.
Each year we launch a report which highlights how we are addressing key issues facing humanity as set-out by the United Nations. As the UK’s first university to have social responsibility as a core goal, we’ve developed a strategy to tackle the SDGs in four inter-related ways: through our research, learning and students, public engagement and operations.
Our latest SDG report shows that the University published over 22,000 pieces of research on the SDGs in the past five years, which is 4% of the UK’s entire share of publications. It details teaching and learning programmes that address the SDGs, such as our ‘Creating a Sustainable World’ interdisciplinary unit.
Learning and students
The University of Manchester and Manchester School of Architecture are partnered with acrylic manufacturer Floreeda to repurpose plastic waste through REFLO, a circular recycling process that transforms student modelmaking offcuts into new acrylic sheets. Floreeda’s REFLO process converts end-of-life acrylic into granules, which are levelled, heated, and pressed into new sheets, enabling multiple reuses and supporting a closed-loop, circular economy.
The Sustainability Champions Programme is an opportunity for passionate students to take on an additional role alongside their degree programme to help promote sustainable change. Student champions are organised into teams based upon their personal interests in environmental sustainability. These subject areas include nature, travel and transport, energy and carbon, sustainable food, reuse and recycling and our hedgehog champions. In teams, our champions plan and deliver events to promote sustainability, for instance events focused on reducing the environmental impact of Halloween as a celebration, demonstrating how the Champions programme is a vital mechanism in embedding sustainable thinking through community engagement and social practice.
Find out more here.
Public engagement
Bee Circular UoM is a student-led initiative focused on reducing food waste and fostering sustainability within the University of Manchester and its surrounding community through strategic partnerships and volunteer engagement.
Sustainability Action Month is our biggest sustainability event of the year involves four weeks of interactive activities and events to enhance understanding of the climate crisis and showcase easy ways to embed sustainable practices at work, on campus, and at home. We share practical hints, tips, and solutions that we encourage you to embed in your everyday lives at work, on campus, and at home.
Operations
The University of Manchester’s Furniture4Reuse store extends the life of surplus furniture by redistributing it across campus and to local charities and community groups. The initiative supports sustainability by reducing waste and carbon emissions, while helping projects like Biko Bikes, a student‑led initiative making sustainable travel more accessible. It also supports Essentials, the University’s student basic needs centre, alongside local organisations including schools and Hulme Community Garden Centre, ensuring valuable resources are reused where they are most needed and create a positive impact across the community.
Check out this video for more information.
The University of Manchester are 100% ‘Zero Landfill’ on Main Campus. Our general, clinical, and offensive waste is now fully diverted from landfill. Instead of landfill, our non-recyclable general waste now goes through a process known as Energy from Waste (EfW), a waste management method that converts non-recyclables into electricity and heat. Once waste is collected on campus, it is transported to a waste transfer station nearby, where it is ‘bulked up’ before being sent to an EfW facility. At the EfW facility, it is burned under safe and controlled conditions. The process of burning the waste generates heat, which is then used to power steam turbines and produce electricity, ensuring that every by-product (which includes ash and metals) is recovered and reused.