Green Gown Awards
The Green Gown Awards are awards given to acknowledge institutions of higher education such as colleges and universities on their exceptional efforts towards sustainability, under the purview of the Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges, with support from the United Nations Environment Programme. The awards are referred to as the "highest recognition given to higher education institutions that carry out sustainability efforts" in reaching the United Nations 's Sustainable Development Goals.
The original awards, now the Green Gown Awards UK & Ireland, were given to institutions in United Kingdom and Ireland. This was later expanded with the Green Gown Awards Australasia in 2010 and the International Green Gown Awards from 2014. Among the most sought-after category is the Sustainability Institution of the Year.
Background
The first Green Gown Awards were awarded by EAUC in 2004 to institutions of higher education in United Kingdom and Ireland. These first awards were made in six categories - Energy Efficiency, Sustainable Construction, Transport, Sustainable Procurement, Waste Management, and Water Efficiency, with the categories changing and expanding in later years.There are two levels of acknowledgement in the awards: Winner and Highly Commended.
In 2010, the awards expanded beyond United Kingdom and Ireland. The original awards programme in those two countries was renamed Green Gown Awards UK & Ireland and another programme was created for the Australasian region, Green Gown Awards Australasia. The awards were later expanded to French-speaking countries in 2014, as Les trophées des campus responsables.
The awards were further expanded to the rest of the world with the introduction of the International Green Gown Awards in 2014, with the first such awards being won by RMIT University for the category Continuous Improvement: Institutional Change, Hull College for Social Responsibility, and Manchester Metropolitan University for Student Engagement.
Since 2019, the award categories have included Sustainability Institution of the Year, awarded to institutions who sustained a whole-institution commitment and delivered impact towards sustainability while being a sustainable organisation as a whole.
The International Green Gown Awards have had separate winners in each category for small and large institutions since 2020.