Our year in sustainability
Cambridge University Press & Assessment reports on its commitment to sustainability
Cambridge University Press & Assessment has submitted its second annual report on progress against sustainability goals to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC).
The UNGC is a global call to organisations and businesses to align strategies and operations with ten universal principles covering human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. Cambridge is a proud participant in the world's largest sustainability initiative.
Over 30,000 organisations who participate in it embed the ten principles into their operations and report back via an annual progress report.
Highlights of Cambridge’s sustainability work include:
1. Cambridge University Press’s ambition is to publish the majority of research journals open access by 2025, which means the research we publish will be available for anyone to read. Over 50 percent of articles were published open access in 2022-23. Making research available to as many people as possible is one of the most effective things we can do to tackle big global problems
2. We achieved a 4 percent reduction in energy usage across our UK operations in the financial year 2022/23. We completed 21 projects across our UK properties, which we estimate will reduce our carbon emissions by around 200 tonnes
3. Over 1000 colleagues participated in courses on conscious inclusion and LGBT+ allyship, as part of our Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (EDIB) learning academy
4. The launch of an Ethics Champions network is supporting best practice around the organisation globally.
We asked Vicky Evans, Head of Sustainability at Cambridge University Press & Assessment, about our programme of work across our products, services and operations last year.
Our publishing programme
What has Cambridge been doing to support sustainability in publishing?
Publishing research and educational materials with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in mind makes us an even more effective agent for global change. We are a signatory to the SDG Publishers Compact which helps us to align our work to increase knowledge and understanding of sustainability issues, while improving the impact of our operations on people and planet.
We publish across the full range of SDGs and have particular strengths in climate change, and health and wellbeing publishing. We also publish the IPCC reports – the science that underpins the world’s target setting around reducing carbon emissions – and a whole range of environment books and journals research.
As well as content, we're reducing the impact of our publishing by sourcing more sustainably and increasing digital delivery. Our Cambridge English coursebooks, for example, now use 99 percent sustainably sourced paper, and over 60 percent of journals are now delivered in digital format.
Quality education
How is Cambridge delivering quality education around the world?
Education is the most powerful long-term solution to poverty, conflict and many of the issues facing the world today. This year, we achieved a milestone of reaching over 100 million learners around the world with our education materials and assessments, supporting the drive to reduce disparities in educational participation and outcomes.
Programmes like our Partnership for Education and HP EdTech Fellowships support innovators in Sub Saharan Africa to advance digital transformation in education systems.
What are you doing to ensure the continuity for learners facing disrupted education?
Populations are shifting due to a range of global issues, including climate change. We have formal programmes to support displaced learners to continue on their education pathways by flexing around challenging environments. For example, we created a curricular and learning structure for Ukranian students which enables them to transfer their learning to education systems in different countries.
The digital content we provide makes content available to learners who aren't able to sit down in a classroom for hours every day. Cambridge English has been supporting learners who have missed aspects of their learning jourey through gamified learning.
What about the impact of exams on the environment?
Recent research by Ofqual, the exams regulator in England, estimated the carbon footprint of a GCSE test. OCR, our UK exam board, contributed to the research. It's important we understand the carbon emissions produced by the assessment industry and work to reduce these. We recently announced that OCR will offer a fully-digitally assessed GCSE in Computer Science from 2025.
Commitment to the environment
Can you tell us about some of the highlights in support of our commitment to environment and climate education?
In addition to reducing our overall energy use this year, we launched a Carbon Literacy course for Cambridge colleagues in collaboration with the Carbon Literacy Project. Over 70 colleagues in key roles have already been trained in climate science and carbon reduction approaches. We aim to have trained 15 percent of our organisation by the end of the 2023/4 financial year.
How is Cambridge improving the social and environmental performance of our supply chain?
For the first time, we've included a 'sustainability and net zero targets' clause into our contracts which will be monitored via supplier engagement. Our procurement team is working with suppliers to audit sustainability performance. We're also working collaboratively with suppliers, for example hosting events to talk about our sustainability goals and ways to work together to make progress.
Building a place to belong
What is being done to support gender balance and women’s rights?
Achieving gender balance and championing the participation of women in education and beyond is central to our inclusion strategy. The latest data on gender showed a 1.36 percent improvement on the previous year in our UK gender pay gap. Our UK gap is lower than the national average.
To mark International Woman's Day in 2023, OCR highlighted the achievements of women in mathematics, psychology and health and care, while our academic publishing team made available a set of free-to-read book chapters and journal articles as well as a collection of our popular books authored by and about women on the theme, Embrace Equity.
Tell us more about the work across Cambridge's Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (EDIB) programme?
Our Global Director for Equality, Diversity, Inclusivity and Belonging, Serita Bonsignore, is leading our work in this area.
This year, 1095 colleagues have taken part in courses on conscious inclusion and LGBT+ allyship, as part of our EDIB learning academy. We’ve also worked with Creative Access, Change 100, 10,000 Black Interns, the Kickstart Scheme and Anglia Ruskin University in the UK and Jobs For Her in India to help drive inclusive recruitment.
“We’re committed to advancing a sustainable society, accessing a broader range of learners than ever before and gathering data to enable us to grow, diversify and innovate.”
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