Positioning the University of Dundee as a leader in sustainability in the Higher Education Sector

The University of Dundee has a responsibility to make a positive impact on the world through its Charter mission to “transform lives through the creation, sharing and application of knowledge”.

Sustainability is a core pillar within its strategy of ‘social purpose’, which links its triple intensity approach to delivering excellence in research, education and engagement through three pillars: climate action and net zero, equality and inclusion, and population health and wealth.

It is home to the UK’s only UNESCO Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science, the established Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy, the newly created BINKS Institute for Sustainability, and various independently funded research projects.

It is also focused on creating solutions – including at institutional level through many internal climate action and carbon reduction teams, as well as involvement in the external city-wide Dundee Climate Leadership Group.

The university aims to align itself with Scottish Government targets of achieving net zero by 2045 and to show relevance to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), of which it signed the SDG Accord and made a public commitment to embed these goals into its organisation. University leaders have also publicly agreed to the priorities set out in the Concordat for the Environmental Sustainability of Research and Innovation Practice to reduce the environmental impact of carrying out its research.

Every aspect of the university’s reputation, revenue and recruitment is affected by its approach to sustainability. Many prospective students are basing their decisions on which university to attend around its sustainability efforts and, in 2022, 95% of 3,371 domestic students surveyed in the QS UK Domestic Student Survey said that they “expect universities to be doing more to further the sustainability agenda and combat climate change”.

Performance in sustainability is also playing an increasingly significant role in how universities are graded against each other in reputation rankings, including the QS World University Rankings where sustainability holds a 5% weighting (criteria newly introduced in 2023). Institutions are judged on ESG (environment, social, governance) as well as research conducted and education of sustainability issues.

Strong performance in such rankings leads to increased value of reputation and credibility, which helps to attract and maintain student numbers, respected academic and professional staff, desirable partnerships and funding opportunities, while also supporting growth of the university’s brand and global reach.

Situational analysis

The role universities play in securing global sustainability is significant. To become a ‘leader’ in this space within the Higher Education (HE) sector, the university must go beyond simply meeting expectations or targets.

Universities are expected to be at ‘the forefront’ of solutions to sustainable living, as reported in the QS UK Domestic Student Survey 2022, but 95% of students who responded to this survey said universities need to do more to further the agenda.

Almost half of prospective students “would prefer to study at a sustainable university over a top 100 ranked institution,” the QS Shaping Sustainable Futures 2025 report states. Plus, 43% of 62,000 prospective international students who responded to the 2023 QS International Student Survey revealed actively researching universities’ sustainability strategies when deciding where to attend.

Institutional level

Organisations across the HE sector are placing increasing focus on managing ESG (environment, social, governance) – essentially their impact in and on the outside world.

Plans to embed sustainability into all of its operations are set out in the university’s Environmental and Sustainability Policy, and commitments to achieve net zero are contained within the Carbon Management Plan, but limited details of how some of these are being achieved is evidenced online.

Details of positive sustainability achievements and changes are scattered across separate, unlinked sections of the website and many are introduced without any communications activity.

For example, the university’s achievement of reducing its carbon emissions by 42% since 2015, energy saving upgrades to building structures such as glazing, roofs and walls, and energy savings through reducing freezer temperatures, are all communicated on separate webpages which do not link to each other and are not accessible through one central point of the website.

There is no information technology which allows a core narrative to be created between these individual projects and there is no centralised focal point on the website for sustainability, therefore such achievements are not easy to find online.

Regular communication activities around these types of changes and promotion in a centralised location would build upon the university’s ‘social purpose’ brand and messaging around sustainability.

Failure to adhere can have serious consequences, as witnessed when oil firm Shell’s advert was deemed misleading and banned by ASA.

While Shell ‘strongly disagreed’ with the finding, the ASA ruled that when promoting how clean its overall energy production was, the advert “left out information on Shell’s more polluting work with fossil fuels,” as reported by BBC News.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) commitment

In 2023, the UN revealed in its report Times of Crisis, Times of Change, that “business-as-usual strategies will not deliver the SDGs by 2030, or even 2050”. The report called for research based on science, innovation and action. The university can make a vital contribution towards this narrative through its research, particularly through the BINKS Institute for Sustainability.

The university has utilised strong media interest in sustainability research and secured coverage in all forms of press and broadcast media, at regional and national levels, on such topics.

Further communications activities to connect these separate research projects under BINKS and to combine them with the university’s wider SDG efforts are needed to raise the profile of the university’s focus on sustainability.

Through the SDG Accord, the university is required to report annually on its progress towards achieving the SDGs, including case studies. While these requirements are being met, the reports and case studies are not being utilised for an external audience.

The UN encourages the use of its branding on SDGs to maintain continuity around communication of the goals. This provides an opportunity to create a recognisable, centralised webpage and focal point for connecting the university’s sustainability work.

Rankings

The university’s positioning in Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings, which focuses on sustainability, has fallen steadily from 20 in 2019 (the first year it was compiled) to between 201-300 in 2024, but there has been a quadrupling in participating institutions during that time.

THE Impact Rankings create an overall league, as well as separate rankings under each individual SDG. Significance is placed on SDG 17 which holds a 22% weighting in overall score. It is the only category which is compulsory, and consistently entered by the university every year.

At the time of writing, the university had an overall score of 72.2 for SDG 17 – a small decrease from its 2022 score of 72.7. Performance in SDG 17 assesses commitment to the goals overall through four subcategories.

Over the past three years scoring has increased significantly in the subcategory of ‘education for the SDGs’, increased slightly in ‘SDG 17 research’, and declined in ‘relationships to support the goals’ and ‘publication of SDG reports’ categories. These two lower performing subcategories should take priority in communications activities.

The university has seen a year-on-year increase in its scoring in the QS World University Rankings: Sustainability since it was introduced in 2023. Its score was 79.4 in March 2025 which placed the university at 190 in these sustainability rankings. However that was still far behind many Scottish and UK competitors.

Comparison with three UK universities (University College London, Edinburgh and Manchester) who all placed in the top 10 shows that the biggest gaps in overall scoring between the university and these other institutions was in the following categories: ‘relation to impact of education’, ‘environmental education’, ‘employment and opportunities’, ‘environmental sustainability’ and ‘environmental impact’. These should also be areas of priority for strategic communications.

An analysis was undertaken of these competitors’ websites. All three contain substantial online sections which bring together sustainability work in all of the subcategories of the QS sustainability rankings.

They connect various projects on several different webpages, including research projects, institutional case studies and regular SDG reporting. One of these competitors also has an online searchable ‘Directory of Activities’ which links to 22,000 pieces of research and categorises them under the 17 SDGs.

This analysis highlights the level of work the University of Dundee must undertake to increase visibility of its sustainability work.

Recommendations

A joined-up approach between individual sustainability projects taking place across the university is lacking – a framework to facilitate that is essential and should be established. Information should flow easily between these projects internally.

As well as work being easy to locate in a centralised location online, sustainability messaging should be embedded into all communications activities to establish a core narrative, connecting organisational approach. Information should be presented externally in a way which resonates with familiar external frameworks, such as SDG reporting.

Using strategic communications to pull together many separated pieces of work across the university would create coherency and establish narrative.

The Palau Legacy Project did this effectively through a campaign which asked visitors to sign a Palau Pledge to visit the island in the Pacific, connecting a variety of sustainability work which was already taking place across the island.

The following SMART PR objectives were advised:

• Produce a first set of annual SDG reports for online publication by November 2025, to tie in with the submission deadline for THE Impact Rankings 2026, with the aim of achieving a minimum score of 77.4 in the ‘publication of SDG reports’ subcategory.
• Establish a 20% increase in communications activities relating to lower scoring subcategories of QS sustainability rankings, by April 2026 (when submissions are due).
• At least 80% of students should agree that the university has an innovative approach to sustainability, by the end of their first academic year.
• At least 80% of staff should understand the university’s SDG commitments and sustainability work taking place at the institution, by July 2026.
• At least 60% of partner academics should agree that the University of Dundee is driving forward sustainability research, by July 2026.
• Establish a 30% increase in communications activities around institutional changes in relation to sustainability and improvements in carbon reduction, by July 2026.

Implementation: planning models

There will always be ‘emergent’ aspects of sustainability so flexibility in strategy must exist, but the university must be seen to be consistent and proactive, and communications activities must reflect this.

Through her agile planning model, Betteke Van Ruler believes that traditional communication planning should be adapted to include the fast-paced social and digital landscape.

While the essence of agile working is necessary in relation to sustainability, it is not likely to change at such a speed that a framework of Reflective Communication Scrum would be necessary.

Situational analysis research must be updated ahead of and during communications activities around sustainability.

The ‘review’ aspect present in Kevin Ruck’s RADAR model should offer the level of flexibility required to allow communications activities to be adapted if necessary, while maintaining a consistent approach to strategy.

Both a PESTLE and SWOT analysis were conducted for an understanding of the environment in relation to the university’s approach to sustainability.

PESTLE

Political:

• Scottish Government requires organisations to cut their carbon emissions by 75% by 2045, compared to 1990 figures.
• UK Government required to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 100% compared to 1990 levels by 2050.
• EU target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.

Economic:

• Prospective student choice increasingly based on organisation’s sustainability action.
• Sector wide issues relating to finance due to low levels of funding.
• Domestic student numbers steady but international student numbers declining.
• Rising competition in securing organisational partners and financial partners.

Social:

• Societal expectation that universities should be active in developing the sustainability agenda.
• Required staff behaviour change to ensure ESG is at the centre of all decisions.

Technological:

• Rise in awareness of carbon emissions through website, email usage and data storage. An independent carbon audit was carried out on the university’s website in 2024.

Legal:

• Under ASA green claims code and Climate Change and the Environment, organisations must not overstate their climate achievements.
• Climate Change Act (2008) requires the UK to be carbon-neutral by 2050.
• UK Government committed to the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Environmental:

• Research, particularly science and medical, needs a lot of equipment with high energy usage.
• Listed buildings on campus present challenges for modification for the purposes of energy reduction.

SWOT

Strengths:

• Strong reputation as an education provider and research facility.
• Sustainability rankings are improving.
• Level and variety of sustainability research, including pockets of unique specialist knowledge.
• BINKS Institute of Sustainability joins separate research projects.
• Lots of partnership work happening with other universities and industry professionals.
• Valued relationships with media who are interested in sustainability.

Weaknesses:

• No core narrative connecting university’s individual sustainability related projects.
• Lack of sustainability reputation measurement and data gathering – heavily reliant on rankings.
• Lack of measurement of staff and student awareness and level of understanding of sustainability.
• Lack of structures to facilitate effective organisation between separate sustainability projects.

Opportunities:

• Arrival of BINKS Director and further milestones along the way.
• COP – showcase the university’s experts’ opinions, work and research.
• Partnership with Scotland Beyond Net Zero – promote alongside its events.

Threats:

• Getting ESG wrong is a serious brand and reputational risk if something the university says/does is proved wrong or indirectly negatively affects something else.
• Connecting with other brands, partners or institutions who further down the line do not align with the university’s values.

Stakeholders

A stakeholder is identified by Edward Freeman as “any group or individual who can affect or is affected by” the organisation’s actions.

While many different types of individuals and groups could fall into this definition, Anne Gregory argues they can be broadly split into stakeholders who have an interest in the organisation and those who have an interest in a particular issue within the organisation.

James Grunig breaks this down even further, believing stakeholders can move between passive and active states, becoming active when an issue arises which affects them personally or emotionally and there are no constraints in their taking action.

Key stakeholders were plotted using a combination of the power-interest model and James Grunig’s passive and active subgroups in relation to sustainability at this present time.

While this provides a starting point, additional stakeholders may need to be assessed for individual PR campaigns, as well as refreshing these stakeholders’ states.

REFERENCES

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A huge thank you to Sheanne for being willing to share her CIPR Professional PR Diploma Unit 1 assignment as a case study.

What the assessors said about Sheanne’s PR Diploma assignment:

This is a near-perfectly realised assignment that meets the challenges of the assignment brief……..You are well-informed and provide evidence for your arguments. This could have gone in the direction of hype and greenwashing, but instead you are clear that this isn’t about environmental claims, it’s about the development of solutions to the climate emergency (‘Universities are expected to be at the forefront of solutions to sustainable living’). Indeed, you are alert to the danger of greenwashing, citing recent ASA rulings…….The structure is sound, starting with a clear statement of the problem. The writing is impeccable.

We hope it may inspire others in their communication work and perhaps also to join Sheanne and hundreds of other PR and communication practitioners in studying for a CIPR qualification.

Learn more, check out our Guide to CIPR Qualifications