Kevin Casey, the University’s Head of Procurement, has been shortlisted for a prestigious Green Gown award in the sustainability champion category.

The Sustainability Champion Award recognises people who have worked hard at implementing a sustainability initiative and whose involvement has made a positive impact.

Kevin agreed to some simple sustainability training for his team and that triggered a domino effect that now sees him champion sustainability in almost every aspect of his work. Kevin has been keen to share the work that he has done and offers everything out to the wider higher education sector to support peers at other universities.

Significant time and resources has been allocated by Kevin to enable his team to develop their understanding of sustainability and to update the University’s procurement processes and practice. The Procurement Team has built strong foundations for embedding sustainability throughout the University’s procurement activity; achieving Level 4 of the Flexible Framework in just six months and the team are working hard to achieve Level 5 by 2017.

The Green Gown judges were delighted to see procurement represented in the awards as this is not usually an area that is nominated for sustainability related awards. Kevin will find out if he has won the Sustainability Champion Award on 10 November at a ceremony in Leicester.