Durham University falls in Environment league table

Emily Doughty News Editor

Durham University has fallen in the People and Planet national league table, which focuses on social and environmental justice. The University ranked 39th, receiving a 2:1 grade and overall scoring 56%. This is a fall in nine places after ranking 30th last year.

While the University performed well in environmental policy and strategy, environment auditing and management systems, scoring 100%, they did less well in other areas.

This included 6 of the 14 total categories where the University scored under 50%. These were ethical careers and recruitments, workers rights, energy sources, waste and recycling, carbon reduction and water reduction.

The University also scored zero for both its living wage and equality for outsourced staff and in their failure to reach its emissions reduction targets.

They also scored 0 out of 5 for their ethical banking policy, as the University, according to People and Planet, did not have an ethical banking policy, or exclude banks that finance fossil fuels.

The University was also highlighted by People and Planet for not meeting their emissions reduction target, a result taken from the Universities estate plan.

A full link to the methodology used by People and Planet can be found online.

People and Planet is “the largest student network in the

UK” for social and environmental justice. They release their league table annually as past of their missions to promote change across Universities.

Jack Ballingham, Durham Students’ Union’s Opportunities