Brighton’s three colleges, BHASVIC, GBMET and Varndean College have jointly pledged their commitment to the recently released FE Climate Roadmap with all three aiming to be ‘leading’ institutions by 2023.
The Principals of BHASVIC (William Baldwin), Varndean (Donna-Marie Janson) and acting CEO of GBMET (Andy Green) commented that “Climate change is without doubt the single biggest issue that our students consistently raise and care passionately about. There is now a moral imperative for every organisation to take steps to quickly and drastically address their own sustainability. As leaders of institutions that account for over 90% of places for educating 16-19 year olds in the city, we need to show our students that we are acting now, acting quickly and acting together”.
This launch of this collaborative initiative has been timed to coincide with ‘Love Our Colleges’ week, which celebrates the central role of that colleges play in our communities, with the today’s theme focusing on colleges designing our future. Whilst the three colleges have all been making their own inroads into becoming more sustainable institutions, this is the first time they are able to adopt a national roadmap and is the first example of a group of colleges that have signed-up collaboratively.
The colleges have also promoted this roadmap through the work of the Brighton and Hove Youth Climate Assembly.
Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas said “This is a brilliant move by our three colleges, joining forces and responding to the voices of young people to take action on the climate emergency, with meaningful targets to achieve. Brighton and Hove are showing the way in responding to the crisis and it’s fantastic to see BHASVIC, Varndean and GBMET be part of this.”
In order to remain accountable, later this year anyone interested will be able to follow the progress each college is making against this roadmap via each individual college website.
