Technology

Technology enables our learning experiences, optimises our working practices and can help staff and students to travel less between campuses and to connect more easily. It is also one of the fastest growing areas of energy consumption and carbon emissions in the university sector, so bringing sustainability into computing equipment and services is an important future agenda for us.

Information strategy and sustainability

Our Digital Strategy highlights lower carbon digital solutions and takes account of:

• Responsible purchasing and supply chain ethics, including production of IT equipment.
• Responsible disposal and the impacts and issues around both IT equipment and data.
• Responsible systems and servers, including efficiencies and minimising impacts.

Technology services and learning resources

Our IT and Library teams support the sustainability agenda by:

• Promoting the use of video and teleconferencing as an alternative to travelling to meetings, to reduce the carbon impact of inter-campus and off-site travel
• Supporting the development and use of real-time data ‘dashboards’ to improve communication of, and engagement with, the use of energy at the University
• Having strategic plans to guide action on sustainability in libraries, across all aspects from resources and equipment to learning and community services
• Providing single, multi-function printing devices and constantly reviewing requirements to ensure resource efficiency
• Introducing Teams telephony systems for all staff vastly reducing device requirements
• Sustainability is part of the funding agreement with the LEP for technical delivery and features in the design of facilities and purchase of equipment for our new Cyber Security programme.