Procurement and catering

Key successes

To reduce our impact on the environment, the following measures have been taken:

• All nine of our catering units offer plant-based alternatives for main meals, soups, grab-and-go food, plus drinks.
• We have introduced a 10p cup charge for disposable coffee cups bought in our catering outlets, diverting over 100,000 cups from waste. The funds from the charge are ring-fenced for investment in sustainability initiatives.
• We sell reusable coffee cups and lunch boxes across all our catering outlets and give customers a 15p discount when using a reusable cup.
• We have transitioned to compostable or recyclable packaging in all our outlets. The Hideout coffee shop on Stag Hill campus is now plastic free front of house.
• We have introduced 11 new water refill points on campus to reduce single-use plastic and encourage the transition to reusable water bottles. We have also introduced canned water options across catering outlets to help eliminate single use plastics.
• We have eliminated single use straws and plastic bags from the Students' Union’s nightclub.
• We have set up a Community Fridge with the Students' Union to minimise food waste, donating all pre-packaged goods to the University community.

Sustainable procurement and sourcing 

Sustainability needs to be embedded across the supply chain, influencing how we procure goods and services, the types of goods and services we procure, and how we manage their lifecycle. The Sustainability and Procurement teams have been measuring their progress in sustainable procurement using the government’s Flexible Framework. The University has expanded the Flexible Framework from five to ten stages in order to clarify actions and expedite delivery. So far the sustainability and procurement teams have completed a number of actions including, crucially, the creation of a sustainable procurement plan, the selection and delivery of training in sustainable procurement, and the advanced filtering and classification of suppliers.

The University’s Procurement Policy (PDF) states our commitment to ensuring sustainability, modern slavery, socially responsible procurement issues and equality/diversity factors are considered in purchasing decisions. Sustainable procurement principles for tendering processes with external partners are incorporated in the policy, including those related to food purchasing.

In order to provide access to local food on campus, we organise a farmers' market every Thursday. The market features various produce and street food from local producers. 

Auditing our supply chain

The University audits its supply chain using the NetPositive Futures tools ‘Supplier Engagement Tool’ and ‘ Net Zero tool’. The University has over 3,000 suppliers providing products and services as diverse as IT support, furniture, lab equipment and uniforms with a carbon footprint of almost 70,000tco2e and a total spend of more than £100million.

To date the University has reviewed its 3000 suppliers, focussing on the top 70% of spend and carbon emissions, which equates to about 270 key suppliers. These suppliers’ range in size from multinational companies like Dell, to SME’s with less than 50 members of staff. This list of 270 suppliers has been further prioritised to focus on 40 companies which are critical and important to the University.

During the period 2024 to 2026 the Procurement team is engaging with these 40 companies to understand their carbon footprint and to work with them to reduce both their carbon emissions and their wider sustainability impact, using the two tool kits provided by NetPositive Futures.