Sustainability

Sustainability is one of the most important issues facing our generation, all of us must come together to take action and improve our sustainability. At the Students' Union, we believe that small actions, when multiplied by our community, can have a significant impact. This page highlights all the efforts we are making to support the initiatives here at Royal Holloway. If there is more you would like to see from the SU, please get in touch with your ideas via helpdesk@su.rhul.ac.uk. 

We’re part of Royal Holloway’s Environmental Sustainability Working Group and contribute to sustainability initiatives across the University. We also work closely with the Royal Holloway Estates Team, who manage our energy and water supplies and waste management services. Find out more here: Environmental Sustainability

---

Across our venues

We’ve replaced paper posters with digital screens across campus to reduce waste in our campaigns, and we bulk-buy supplies to minimise deliveries, helping us cut down on unnecessary carbon emissions.

Working alongside Royal Holloway’s Sustainability Programme Team, we’ve also started monitoring our environmental footprint, including our waste output – as seen in the below graph. We’re conscious with this that waste generation has been rising for several years following the bounce back in student activities since the Covid pandemic and social distancing restrictions, but hope that this has now settled and that we will be able to start reducing our waste output once again over the next few years (including increasing the overall recycling rate).

Communities Sustainability Guide

We support over 163 diverse student communities on campus, including societies, sports clubs, and media outlets, helping them host events, training, and fixtures. To make the sustainability agenda sit at the forefront, we created a Sustainability Guide specifically for our student groups, offering practical tips to be more eco-conscious in their activities.

Sustainbility Award

To further incentivise sustainable efforts, we introduced a Sustainability Award. This recognises and celebrates the creativity and commitment of student groups making a positive environmental impact. Previous examples of sustainable practices that winners of this award have done include:

• Implementing a dress recycling program where graduating members were asked to pass on their old dresses to be sold on, helping to reduce carbon emissions and save resources.
• creatively reusing plastic by turning it into keyrings, reducing plastic waste and promoting recycling.
• Introducing a transition clothing bag and organising a Trans self-care session & clothes swap, providing invaluable support to the transgender community while also promoting sustainable practices.

Climate Anxiety Workshops

Sustainability isn’t just about the environment – it’s also about wellbeing. Climate anxiety is a real challenge many of us face, so we’ve organised workshops to help our community understand and cope with these feelings, building resilience and hope for the future.

Together, these initiatives demonstrate that sustainability isn’t just an abstract concept at RHSU – it’s an actionable part of who we are. By working as one, we can continue to make meaningful changes for our campus and the world.

News & Updates

---

Events