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ISSUE 232
TOP QUALITY STUDENT HOMES FROM UNITE STUDENTS
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“Our purpose is defined as ‘Home for Success’, and it’s all about creating environments where students can succeed to a greater degree by living with us than elsewhere”
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SUSTAINABLE & GREEN INITIATIVES UNITE STUDENTS
TOP QUALITY STUDENT HOMES Unite Students is the leading provider of student accommodation in the UK Although affordability has been one of the most frequently reported measurements of success in the provision of student accommodation of late, it is only one piece in the puzzle of the educational arena. So while affordability is important, the quality of accommodation, along with the lifestyle experience it can offer students, have also been identified as playing an equally vital role in the success of students. Accommodation is more than just being about a “cheap places to live”. It is within this very area that Unite Stu-
dents, a leading student accommodation provider, comes to the fore. Founded back in 1991, Unite Students was born in Bristol and, through collaboration with the University of the West of England, initially recognised a way to regenerate tired, disused buildings into top-quality homes for the student population. Roll forward to the modern day, and the company has become the leader in the creation of purpose-built student accommodation, providing a home for around 50,000 students in more than 140 properties across 28 leading university cities in England and Scotland. Geographically, Unite Students locates its student
homes near city centres and universities, providing easy accessibility, whilst also equipping students with all the conveniences required for modern student living. Over the years, Unite’s growth into a national organisation with similar, if not expanded, values to the original establishment of the organisation – specifically, seeing an enormous push towards environmental responsibility and the development of its built assets to a degree of sector-wide excellence, effectively “building for the future”. Designed with the student in mind, Unite Students is indeed one the UK’s leading pro-
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viders of student accommodation, primarily as direct result of the level of care provided for students, and in supporting their own, individual ambitions. Taking a considerable step back and re-assessing the very purpose of student accommodation, the organisation relays a unique message on how it intends to assist students in achieving; a message traditionally communicated by the educational establishments themselves. This focus is only the tip of the responsibility iceberg, however. “Our purpose is defined as ‘Home for Success’, and it’s all about creating environments where students can succeed to a greater degree by living with us than elsewhere. That can be for any measure of success you choose, be it for personal success or academic success,” explains James Tiernan, Group Energy & Environment Manager. In the realm of student accommodation, this unsurprisingly presents a stark contrast to many of the pre-existing messages out there, with the company taking a far more responsibility-led approach to service provision than is traditional. Looking at KPIs for measuring success, Unite Students maintains a comprehensive focus which melds academic success together with personal development – specifically looking at the development of an environmentally friendly mindset. Leveraging the interactions between the organisation and the student body, the company has found itself in an enviable position to inspire best practice standards amongst the businesspeople of tomorrow, achieved through communication with the stu-
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dent body directly. Although this is unexpectedly easier said than done, Unite Students has indeed achieved considerable success in this regard. James Tiernan exclaims: “We have something of a responsibility to help students develop and that’s very important from an environment point of view. We have an opportunity to help our students develop responsible living habits. We have to consider how we design our buildings, the way that we manage our buildings and how we actively engage with students to help them develop those lasting sustainability habits. We see this as a potential to deliver a far greater, positive sustainability impact than focussing purely on issues within our direct control as a company.” This goal then, seeing Unite Students focusing on not only the building lifecycle, but also the “resident lifecycle”, represents an evolution in sustainability management. Although organisations have increasingly worked to develop a sustainability culture within internal teams and operations, the Unite Students approach sees this expanded into altering the lifestyles of those individuals which will become the professionals of tomorrow, and those shaping the environmental agenda in the coming years. As for why this is so important in the company business model, we’ll come to that later. Of course, in achieving this goal, Unite Students also understands the core role of willingness in the equation. While students are often being considerably busied persons, the company has been working hard to ensure that ap-
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“We have something of a responsibility to help students develop and that’s very important from an environment point of view”
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INSPIRING ENVIRONMENTS IN WHICH TO LIVE, STUDY AND WORK Pleased to be supporting
Unite Student Accomodation
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0845 300 5969
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propriate measures are in place to give credit where credit is due, by promoting successes and incentivising environmental responsibility as much as possible. This has taken the form of a variety of measures, including displaying league tables to showcase those students acting most responsibly. Through this, the company has been able to leverage goodwill and develop that notion into measurable responsibility action amongst the student body. James Tiernan clarifies: “Students are of a generation which is very aware of environmental and sustainability issues, and are also very keen to do the right thing. But they are only human like all of us, and so while we know what we should do, with sustainability and the environment we don’t always see it through. It’s our duty to keep sustainable living as simple as possible, to encourage people to participate, but also to provide incentive and benefit for doing so. We have a unique comprehensive student engagement programme for helping, encouraging and incentivising reBUILDING DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION MAGAZINE
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SUSTAINABLE & GREEN INITIATIVES UNITE STUDENTS
Conducting frequent surveys amongst the student residency, Unite Students keeps abreast of all the latest needs and demands of its students sponsible behaviours amongst students, that was Highly Commended in the 2016 Energy Awards and 2017 EDIE Sustainability Leaders Awards. ” This sees an effective blend of student incentivisation with that of meeting the direct needs of the student body, as highlighted in the company’s core goals. Yet, ensuring that the needs of students are met, is somewhat relative, and perhaps also subject to change over time, and so Unite Students stands resolute on incorporating student opinion in the development of service today, and for the future. Conducting frequent surveys amongst the student residency, Unite Students keeps abreast of all the latest needs and demands of its students, publishing a comprehensive student insight report to highlight core areas for development and improvement. This maintains core importance when considering the essential role of the student in the company’s overarching strategy. Going beyond student interaction, Unite Students also pushes the envelope on a complete educational-involvement strategy. Recognising that the student is only one piece of the puzzle, the company also works closely with educational establishments to ensure that both sides of the equation are fed into the overarching company strategy. In effect, this could be perceived as a combined effort between both establishments to develop a strong, healthy learning environment for students, whilst also pushing the environmental agenda. Of course, the company’s ambitions in the responsibility sphere are not, however, limited to just the creation of a strong student experience, or in inspiring purely external respon-
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sibility values. James Tiernan furthers: “Our business purpose is supported by four core values. We care, we lead, we unite, and we deliver. These core values are embedded in the way that we bring people into the business, the way that they are trained within the business and the way in which performance is actually managed. It’s all very well-engrained within the business itself.” Seeing responsibility and a culture of success engrained in both the service and the innermost workings of the company itself, Unite Students ensures a consistency in ambition and goal throughout the entirety of the company. This can be seen in a number of company initiatives, many incorporating students working together with company employees to make a responsible impact on society. One such scheme is the Green Impact programme, which provides building management teams with a flexible toolkit of activities, initiatives and measures to implement and run throughout the academic year. This incorporates areas such as recycling, carbon emissions and more
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to push a whole host of responsible activity. Although Unite Students’ activities in the environmental arena are already impressive from what has been discussed so far, it is important to understand that the company does not overlook the traditional approach to sustainability, as seen in other industry organisations. Complementing the company’s strategy for student and employee responsibility, the company has also been working tirelessly to develop and maintain a stock of properties which also support the overarching environmental responsibility aim – this means providing sustainable accommodation to support a sustainable lifestyle. Commenting on the overarching goals, James Tiernan explains: “From our environmental strategy we have an overarching aim for reducing our most significant environmental impacts,: energy and carbon emissions, water, resource use and waste. In order to reduce those impacts, we focus on four areas of activity: objectives of encouraging and enabling sustainable behaviour; creating
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SUSTAINABLE & GREEN INITIATIVES UNITE STUDENTS
Although Unite Students’ activities in the environmental arena are already impressive from what has been discussed so far, it is important to understand that the company does not overlook the traditional approach to sustainability, as seen in other industry organisations.
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sustainable buildings in our existing estate; building sustainable new-buildings; and sourcing sustainable energy., . Our main focus is around carbon reduction as it is our most significant impact. In 2015 we signed up to the Green Business Coalition and we committed to science-based reduction targets, and we’ve already delivered year on year reductions in carbon emissions per student bed over the last three years.” Indeed, Unite Students displays a great deal of expertise in the reduction of carbon usage, including from an infrastructure perspective. Pursuing a number of core, repeatable initiatives for reducing energy use, such as a £21m estate-wide LED lighting upgrade , the company has been able to make a drastic impact on its energy use. Beyond this, the company understands that one shoe does not
fit all, and has therefore also been looking to develop a comprehensive refurbishment and maintenance strategy to develop its assets going forwards. “Once we’ve done lighting, there’s not many initiatives we can roll out across the whole estate. The variety in specification, age, location, layout and building services strategy across the estate means we need a bespoke approach to each of our sites,” adds James Tiernan. And achieving these goals is incredibly important to Unite Students. Going above and beyond the responsibility ethos of the company, it is important to note that the student accommodation sector is one whereby the sustainability of buildings, and those living within them, can be the make or break of any business model. As to why that is, we look at the primary differentiating factor between student
“A key factor in our energy strategy is that rent is fully inclusive, and that includes energy consumption”
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SUSTAINABLE & GREEN INITIATIVES UNITE STUDENTS
accommodation and more traditional forms of accommodation: the inclusivity of energy usage within the rent. James Tiernan explains: “A key factor in our energy strategy is that rent is fully inclusive, and that includes energy consumption. The energy which students use is therefore our cost, so that makes it even more important for us to manage that from a business point of view. It also makes sense for our students to understand the impact of their energy use, so that when they move on from living with us, they understand how to avoid the shock of enormous energy bills.” Bringing meaningful business sense together with environmental responsibility has seen James Tiernan’s activities at Unite Students improve overall cost efficiencies, and responsibility values at the very same time. It illustrates that the role of sustainability within this business model is one we can only see growing over time, with the financial and responsibility gains serving to increase still further the importance for tightening energy use on both an individual and societal level. We will be watching how Unite Students continues to lead in this field over the coming years.
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