14/10/14 - Take the journey with us through LiFE

Today marks an important day for the EAUC and our Members as we're delivering a new free tool which not only gives you the freedom to shape what sustainability means for your institution, but helps you to improve your performance. It also means that EAUC Membership can offer you a new level of support to help you meet your targets and see progress.

LiFE is a planning and self-assessment tool specifically for universities and colleges to improve social responsibility and environmental performance through a whole institution approach. LiFE systematically guides you through the design, planning and delivery of your strategic sustainability activities.

Some of you may remember LiFE as a web-based repository system but we've stripped away expensive and inessential items to reveal a simple but powerful tool. LiFE is not a quantitative or statistical benchmarking tool, but it will help you establish the policies and systems you need to deliver improved sustainability performance. This means there is no duplication from existing initiatives such as environmental management systems or league tables as LiFE can be used to pull all of this together as one central strategic view.

The EAUC are constantly looking for ways to add value to Membership and offer products and services that drive sustainability improvement. The introduction of LiFE as a free Member service fulfills both aspects of this objective. We’re confident that LiFE can help our Members to effectively plan and deliver sustainability at whatever stage you are on your journey.

A free EAUC Member service

LiFE is only available to current EAUC Members and you will need your login handy to gain access to the tool. If you're not a Member, join here.

We've provided a whole range of support, ideas and tools on the LiFE website to get you started. Over the coming months we'll be asking for your feedback and we also want to understand what additional support you need from the EAUC to make the best of LiFE, based on your chosen approach.

This also brings new opportunities for networking, dissemination and learning within EAUC Membership and provides a clear focus making our services even more valuable. In the next few months, we're also excited to be sharing with you the Sustainability Exchange which, in a new platform (launching soon), offers a more comprehensive search facility, no login and new partners from the rest of the UK and from further education who will be making new sustainability resources available to you.

Take the journey

It's flexible so you can decide to do all of LiFE or just one of the Priority Areas or Frameworks but, in time, we hope that you opt to take a whole institution approach.

In time, your journey could include going for Accreditation which offers independent assessment and verification of your performance compared to your own self-assessment. This will be available in mid-2015 and will carry a fee.

Get started

Please visit the dedicated LiFE website where you'll find helpful videos, guides and FAQs, not to mention the tool itself which will help you decide how to use LiFE. We are here to help so if you need any support along the way, please do get in touch with the EAUC team.

We're delighted to be able to offer LiFE free to EAUC Members and look forward to supporting you on whichever path you decide to take.

Find out more at www.eauc.org.uk/life