Oxford University and UNEP launch the Nature Positive Universities Alliance
Launched at COP15, the University of Oxford and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), in partnership with the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, have founded the Nature Positive Universities Alliance. The Alliance is a growing network of higher education institutions across the world, working together under a pledge to advance efforts to halt, prevent and reverse nature loss by addressing their impact on the environment.
The network currently represents people from 522 universities in 111 countries promoting nature across university campuses, supply chains and within cities and communities. Members are people from all parts of a university – students, researchers, staff and senior management who have signed up to be part of the alliance.
Members of the Alliance have made an official pledge to advance efforts to halt, prevent and reverse nature loss through addressing their own impacts and restoring ecosystems harmed by their activities. By publicly addressing impacts on nature within their own supply chains and operations, universities can add direct local action to their environmental and conservation research, to help inform government, corporate and community action.
The University pledges include four key elements:
- Carrying out baseline assessments
- Setting specific, time limited and measurable targets for nature
- Taking bold action to reduce biodiversity impacts, protect and restore species and ecosystems, while influencing others to do the same
- Transparent annual reporting.
The initiative builds on the University of Oxford’s target for biodiversity net gain by 2035 alongside net zero commitments. Oxford’s Environmental Sustainability Strategy is founded on a study which quantified its environmental footprint and established a framework to address them. The network is now calling on other universities worldwide to join its collaborative network and to make institutional pledges.
For more information on the Nature Positive Universities Alliance, and details on joining and making a pledge for nature, visit the Nature Positive Universities website.
