Student Green Champions: building a network that turns sustainability awareness into action

In this blog, Josh Cleall, CEO at Team Jump, shares the Student Green Champion's Handbook, a practical guide designed to help sustainability professionals recruit, mobilise and grow thriving networks of student champions.

Every year, new students arrive at the university with energy and passion for making a difference. However, many sustainability teams face the same challenge: how do you turn that enthusiasm into long-term climate action and measurable impact?

Over the last decade, we've worked with universities to develop sustainability engagement programmes that help students move from awareness to action. What we’ve seen is that the most successful universities make the most of their student champions to both take action and recruit more champions and grow the network.

Why student champions matter

Your student network should be able to rely on you just as much as you rely on them. A well-supported student green champion network can extend your reach into classes, halls, and societies in a more personal way than you can alone.

The key is creating a structure that gives students confidence, direction and support. At Team Jump, our goal is to build that structure through our programmes and services we provide to clients, but also through the resources that we provide the community of sustainability officers, who may not be in a position to work with us yet.

What we've learned from successful universities

We recently developed the Student Green Champion's Handbook, a practical guide designed to help sustainability professionals recruit, mobilise and grow thriving networks of student champions.

The handbook draws on our experience supporting universities and includes practical guidance on building a champion network, from defining champion expectations when building your network to regularly measuring impact and celebrating success once your network is thriving.

Importantly, it also includes a ready-to-use worksheet that helps students set SMART goals for their role as champion. The handbook was created specifically to help universities establish a structure for champion-led sustainability engagement.

Join our Sustainability Engagement Masterclass

To coincide with the handbook launch, we're also hosting a free webinar, Sustainability Engagement Masterclass: The Student Champion's Handbook.

During the session, we'll explore how universities can create effective student champion networks and use the handbook to provide structure, support and opportunities for growth.

We're also delighted to be joined by Ray Power, Environmental Sustainability Engagement Assistant at the University of Manchester. Ray has been instrumental in delivering student sustainability engagement initiatives and will share insights from the University's extensive Welcome Week programme, including practical approaches to engaging students at scale.

Whether you're launching a new network or looking to strengthen an existing one, our aim is for you to leave with ideas that can be applied immediately within your institution.

Take the next step

Student sustainability champions can play a vital role in accelerating behaviour change across your university. Their success depends on your support, and your success depends on theirs.

If you're looking for ways to strengthen student engagement, join our upcoming webinar at 10am on 3 September and explore the handbook with your team.

We look forward to sharing what we've learned and hearing your experiences of student sustainability engagement.

This blog was contributed by Team Jump. Connect with Team Jump on LinkedIn or send them an email at info@teamjump.co.uk.