Forth Valley College – in collaboration with the EAUC Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education, West Lothian and Border Colleges - has won an International Green Apple Environment Award in the campaign to find the greenest companies.
They competed against more than 500 other nominations in the International Green Apple Awards, and will be presented with a trophy and certificate soon to mark their achievement.
As a result of this International Green Apple Award success, the partnership been invited to accept Green World Ambassador status and have their winning paper published in The Green Book (the leading international work of reference on environmental best practice), so that others around the world can follow their lead and learn from their achievement.
This will also entitle the collaborative partnership to represent their country in the Green World Environment Awards that are held in a different country every year.
The Green Apple Awards are run by The Green Organisation - an international, independent, non-profit, non-political environment group that began in 1994 to recognise, reward and promote environmental best practice around the world.
The collaboration partnership was formed after responding to the 2021 challenge from Scotland’s Colleges to commit to achieving Net Zero by 2040. As a result FVC, Borders College and West Lothian College formed the Central & South Scotland College Partnership (CSSCP), supported by EAUC Scotland.
Being among the smallest FE institutions in Scotland and without staff dedicated exclusively to sustainability, the three colleges developed a new approach to secure additional support. In 2022 the partnership secured a dedicated sustainability resource by hiring a Sustainability Project Manager – Rory Hill - whose time and costs are shared by the colleges.
Martin Loy, FVC’s Head of Estates and Facilities Management, said: “We are delighted to have won this award, as it gives some excellent recognition to the great work our three College partnership is doing, led by Rory from EAUC Scotland. The strides we are taking together in terms of sustainability and working towards our Net Zero targets are nothing short of remarkable and we hope we can inspire other organisations to look at our collaborative model in the future.”