FBRH Consultants UK: campaign to support the launch of a GRI Education Sector Standard
Building a proactive and sustainable world, together
Positive change does not come through wishful thinking. Our busy and complicated world will continually face many challenges on many fronts. Beyond climate change, other main challenges we need to deal with include: other aspects of planetary pollution and destruction (eg. waste, plastics), Biodiversity loss (which also affects food security), human rights, inequality (digital and economic), mental health deterioration, and social cohesion erosion.
Our aim: Mobilising 235 million university students to start understanding significant impacts and take action in their future professions
Arguably, universities and other teaching institutions’ most important impact concerns teaching students the skills they need to conduct their future professions in a sustainable and responsible way. Only after proper significant impact identification (on economy, society, people), can the other sustainability steps begin to be implemented (measure, manage and change). Preparing students to take real action to continually address significant impacts where these matter.
Our goal
To achieve the above aim our goal is to convince the GRI Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB) to work on the Education services sector standard as a top priority in the work programme that has been defined for the next three years.
Why an Education Sector GRI Standard is a necessity
The power of the GRI Sector Standards lies in two very important aspects:
- A list of a sector’s most significant impacts is clearly defined in the public interest through a transparent, multi-stakeholder approach (academia, business, experts, governments etc.) which includes a period of public comment.
- Organisations are required to either show how they are taking action related to these significant impacts, or provide the reason why they consider (a significant impact) not applicable for them (depends on their value chain position). This level of transparency is an extremely powerful driver for change.
A GRI Education Sector Standard will therefore help organisations focus their efforts on their significant impacts as these have been clearly defined through this robust multi stakeholder and transparent GRI process.
Also read: Academic Institutions and Materiality: Teaching our youth the skills they need to conduct their future professions in a sustainable and responsible way (14 March 2018)
www.fbrh.co.uk campaign – your support will make a difference
This campaign is at the heart of the FBRH strategy to help tackle the many evolving challenges our world is facing in a proactive manner by helping more people understand how to take focused action in an exponential way.
Wisdom is avoiding situations where wisdom is needed.
Taking part in this campaign will make a difference. You can do so through one or a combination of the following ways:
- Signing and sharing our change.org petition found at this link https://chng.it/9fKTQMPSfH
- Sharing this article through your social networks and use #sustainedu235m
- Petitioning your University to support this initiative by first and foremost providing a percentage of the number of courses that teach materiality (the basic skill of identifying their most important impacts in their future professions)
- Petitioning local politicians, government and education ministries to support this initiative
- Actively taking part in promoting our crowdfunding campaign for the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to launch the sector standard (we are liaising with GRI to set this up)
- Volunteering your time to:
- GRI, a non-profit organisation for the development of the proposed GRI Education Standard
- SustainCase.com to promote this campaign
- Co-signing a letter which outlines the need for a GRI Education Sector Standard
Please use this form to subscribe to receive updates on the campaign.
We will keep you up to date with the latest developments and will soon provide more details on how you can support this campaign.
Thank you.
Simon Pitsillides
FBRH Consultants Ltd (SustainCase Editor)
Sustainability Reporting and Marketing Communication Strategy Expert. Simon is a Fellow of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (FIEMA), a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (FCIM), a member of the Chartered Institute of Journalism (CIoJ), and holds an MBA in Marketing. He is a GRI and IEMA Trainer, the publisher of www.sustaincase.com and owner of www.fbrh.co.uk. Simon teaches the FBRH GRI Standards Certified, CPD and IEMA Approved Course (venue: London School of Economics (LSE).
78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards
SustainCase was primarily created to demonstrate, through case studies, the importance of dealing with a company’s most important impacts in a structured way, with use of the GRI Standards. To show how today’s best-run companies are achieving economic, social and environmental success – and how you can too.
Research by well-recognised institutions is clearly proving that responsible companies can look to the future with optimism.
7 GRI sustainability disclosures get you started
Any size business can start taking sustainability action
GRI, IEMA, CPD Certified Sustainability courses (2-5 days): Live Online or Classroom (venue: London School of Economics)
- Exclusive FBRH template to begin reporting from day one
- Identify your most important impacts on the Environment, Economy and People
- Formulate in group exercises your plan for action. Begin taking solid, focused, all-round sustainability action ASAP.
- Benchmarking methodology to set you on a path of continuous improvement