European Students, Sustainability Auditing

This year we launched an EU Erasmus+ -funded project called ‘European Students, Sustainability Auditing’ (ESSA). The initiative is a three year pilot, in which NUS’ official partners are the European Students’ Union, the University of Edinburgh (UK), the University of Porto (Portugal), Kaunas University of Technology (Lithuania), and the students’ associations or unions of these universities (Edinburgh University Students Association, Associação de Estudantes da Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade do Porto and Kaunas University of Technology Students’ Union. It aims to increase students’ employability and satisfaction by providing alternative learning models – through active engagement with sustainability auditing.

We have begun training a cohort of 60 students at participating universities, who will become Social Responsibility Auditors.  The training is intended to operate as student-centred, action-reflection learning – a combination of face-to-face and online – and teaches auditing against Benchmark Standards for University Social Responsibility, collated in an online toolkit. The toolkit includes four categories: Public Learning and Engagement; Governance; Environmental and Social Responsibility; and Fair Practice.

By ensuring that students are active agents in their own learning and its implications for social and environmental sustainability – and by building skills and experience – ESSA hopes to enhance graduate career prospects.  Students will be awarded Level 6 European Qualification Framework (EQF) Certificate in Social Responsibility Auditing, and will complete the final audits at institutions other than their own, fully funded by the project.