CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR) SUPPORT TEAM

What does being a socially responsible university look like for Westminster? AN OPEN SPACE EVENT ON 25TH FEBRUARY 2016

1

Delegate List

Andy Norris Head of CSR Support

Jean Harrison Director of Organisational Development & Wellbeing

Roland Dannreuther Deputy Vice-Chancellor

Andrea Montalvo CSR Support Co-ordinator

Jandi Pearman Sustainability Manager

Nick Kapoutzis Head of Leadership and Organisational Development

Kristina Vasileva Senior Lecturer, Department of Accounting, Finance & Governance

Katy Swarbrick Regent St Cinema Community & Engagement Manager

Aimie Robinson Faculty Administrator, Faculty Support (WBS)

Alina Benyaminova PhD student

Jade Foley HR Adviser

Coco Nijhoff Senior Academic Liaison Librarian

Bill Hall SHW Adviser

Charles Rowe Sales Officer (Sports)

Charlotte Regan Scholarships Administrator

Clara Doherty Procurement Adviser

David Simon Site Assistant

Divya Madhavan Aramark Catering Manager

Gustavo Espino-Ramos PhD student

Lena Tran Information Assistant, Site Library Services

Otis Kirby-Dunkley Students' Union Vice-President of Harrow

Pamela Langley Programme Administrator, Registry Support (FST)

Rebecca Lily Programme Administrator, Registry Support (FST)

Richard Hope Management Information Officer, E&F Sustainability

Rosemary Snelgar Principal Lecturer, Department of Psychology

Shannon Exarchou Student

Tina Clark London Business School

Jackie Rosenberg One Westminster

Tracy Gorbell Safety, Health and Wellbeing Adviser

Sam Johnson Outreach Officer (Primary)

Berekhet Berakhy MEA Officer, Career Development Centre

James Shipley Student

Najma Hassan Student

James Carlberg Outreach Officer (cinema)

Lynda Knill Fundraising Manager (Major Gifts), Fundraising

Josie O'Neill Timetable & Room Bookings Manager, Timetabling

Sarah Glynn The West London Day Centre

Althea Barnabis Communications Manager

Henryetta Simpson Senior Lecturer, Department of Business Info Management & Operations

Aurora Voiculescu Senior Lecturer, Westminster Law School

Lauren Waugh Students' Union Vice-President of Regent

Fiona O'Brien Academic Liaison Manager, Academic Liaison Librarians

Kate Heslegrave Capstone Consultancy

Jasmin Zaman HROD Apprentice

Jo Borrill Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology

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Introduction

This open space session engages key stakeholders to capture and define CSR at Westminster for the future, with a view

to positioning learning, teaching and research and the student and staff experience at the heart of our CSR agenda.

Stakeholders were invited to help create a narrative for CSR at the University to clearly position and communicate our

ambitions and impact whilst linking the activity and ambition of CSR to both Westminster 2020 and our rich

philanthropic heritage.

CSR at the University of Westminster needs at its heart a clear and compelling sense of purpose, that can answer the

questions ‘what do we do?’, ‘how do we do it?’ and most importantly ‘why do we do it?’ to enable clear and consistent

communication of CSR.

The CSR Strategy comprises of a principled commitment to:

academic freedom

equality, diversity and inclusion

engagement with local and international communities

environmental sustainability

ethical and professional behaviour

This session intends to capture stakeholder views on the University’s framework to better align the CSR strategy with

stakeholder interests, to address risks and opportunities, and to differentiate the University as sector leader in CSR.

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Open Space

Prompted by this question, the meeting used the Open Space process

to create an agenda for the day. Topics were discussed in groups and

ideas and recommendations noted. These notes appear in the

following pages.

At the end of meeting, delegates prioritised the different ideas and

the numbers in the brackets below represent their votes. The order of

the discussion groups reflects this prioritisation.

Does the University spend its money ethically?

Ethical investments are fundamental to CSR (3)

Reflects our values

Ensuring that contractors are well paid

Procurement policy should be ethical and this should be communicated to all staff

What is the University invested in? (10)

Are we wasting money? Room hire and catering. Senior management pay (ratio to lowest paid) (4)

Respecting values and diverse interests (passions)

The University should make more effort to enable alignment between personal (passions) interests and University priorities and planning

(7)

Define what CSR means for Westminster (e.g. 6 key principles of CSR) by engaging in dialogue with staff and students and stakeholders

(1)

What does it look like to demonstrate respect for others’ views? Enabling people to set up, participate in and support working groups and discussions

Equality & diversity is fundamental to the sustainability of an organisation, how do we demonstrate our commitment through actions?

(3)

Enable a culture where people can ask questions to understand better why the university makes some decisions

(1)

4

Environmental awareness

Recycling – waste reduction e.g. bring own Tupperware boxes instead of take-away boxes

Mixed recycling in all rooms/ spaces

Reduce, reuse, recycle equipment

Staff sales – computers, books, responsible packaging

Using recycled products (paper etc.)

More drinking fountains

(1)

Conserving energy and water: switching off lights and computers when not in use

Reporting leaking taps

Using renewable energy – solar panels

More green spaces e.g. roof and green gardens, tree planting e.g. outside 115 and potted plants

Engagement with local conservation projects – preserving wild spaces in London

Fairtrade products/ locally-sourced

(5)

Utilising resources to reduce travel and pollution e.g. work from home having virtual meetings

Ensuring the University invests in environmentally friendly organisations

Improving staff engagement with environmental projects/ efforts from low level things like turning off lights to volunteering

Improving student engagement with environmental projects including environmental education in the curriculum

Supporting staff/ student green initiatives

(1) (5)

Access for all - supporting social mobility

Communicating, and acting on, core values of generosity and philanthropic foundations (4)

Increasing outreach/ access activities with local schools – involve staff, students, donors etc. and link to student volunteering

(3)

Investment in support to raise standards before entry to HE policy

Recognise multi-level opportunities to reach out/ bring in e.g. social media and broaden our identity (make accessible) – cinema, volunteering etc. Promote our diversity.

(5)

5

How can we work more effectively on skills and knowledge?

Database on the intranet– volunteer your skills – skills that you are happy to share. Sharing skills and knowledge internally and externally. University to make allowances for this

(3)

Work shadowing, ‘walk in my shoes’. Involve students and community. Taster day opportunities, potential breakfast meetings. Opportunities to work with other universities

(5)

External opportunities to use skills to help others. Apprenticeship opportunities for school leavers. (3)

Team building days – schools and departments. Open coffee morning.

(1)

Engaging with the community in Westminster and development of community resources

Using the intranet – where does CSR sit on the website and intranet?

Social responsibility helps to clarify the purpose of the team

More promotion around how to get involved with CSR opportunities. Facilities available to promote community engagement and Chiswick Sports Ground

Getting more staff and students involved in local projects

Staff collaborating with projects – using yammer

Promote the programme, opportunities and outcomes widely to make CSR central to the University. Donate staff time. Encourage more staff volunteering through a staff volunteering policy

(2)

Staff and students serving as local charity trustees. All students doing voluntary work. Opportunity to give extra-credits to students through volunteering (incentivise). Engage academics to offer the chance to contribute to charities

(5)

Get named, centralised structured way to get opportunities to volunteer and enable it to happen. Help the university to engage with the charities and streamline the process

(2)

Get CSR Team to meet with One Westminster Time and Talents to consider joining up

Providing rooms for free meetings whenever empty

Going beyond compliance and looking after our people & planet

Encouraging behaviours through incentivising, then embedding within organisation. Bottom-up approach in defining CSR within the organisation

(5)

Create a sense of value among staff and students – journey of students to become a responsible person, not just about acquiring knowledge, becoming an adult e.g. respecting and communicating

(1)

Create a sense of community and develop a sense of pride e.g. spaces, online community. How do we get students to spend time on site, including online.

(2)

Develop framework to enable staff to participate in CSR initiatives e.g. staff time (1)

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Student online behaviour- courteous and meaningful

Student code of conduct and of professional principles (5)

Students should have respect for resources they are provided with in general, policies are only part of the solution

(1)

Maturity: abusive or obscene posts are immature. Socialisation into acceptable behaviour in general (1)

Students recording conversations with each other or staff, or other people’s conversations without permission. Do they know that they should ask for permission?? Student-led respect campaigns

Email etiquette (1)

Ipad issue: not without attending intro session which will include behaviour. Could have conduct on doc. (1)

How do other universities deal with it?

CSR Terminology and language

“Education changes lives” – communication and promotion (5)

CSR policy: governance – human rights and business

Drop the corporate?

Identify what is important to the University (1)

Sustainability is an outcome of the CSR policy (1)

Sustainability is the phrase now, not CSR

Focus group with students

(1)

How can public sector organisations become part of the conversation/ benchmarks?

Universities won’t have the resources (funding, staffing) that private companies have to initiate projects necessarily – it is necessary to raise awareness among students and staff and build into culture and daily work

Is being socially responsible a selling tool for universities in the same way that it is for private companies? People buy products because they like them and it has a bigger impact if it is a company with CSR e.g. Ben & Jerry’s

Idea to develop national metrics or reporting structures to capture sustainability performance in HE so that it is easy to see who is doing exceptionally well and raise awareness

(1)

In which disciplines is sustainability/ CSR taught/ part of the conversations/ creating socially aware graduates/ curriculum?

How to influence young people before university – would CSR ever be a factor in their choice of University? It is probably a minor, if any, factor

ROI- put effort into CSR initiatives – will students want to study here? Will staff want to work here? (1)

Establish community partnerships – good for the university, increase visibility and good for private companies & raise students’ awareness

(5)

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Producing Socially responsible graduates

Recognise the importance of the issue to the lives of students e.g. transience of critical aspects like finding housing, work/money and importance of valuing themselves and valuing being a graduate

(5)

Recognising and engaging with social inequality as a way of experiencing others’ CSR issues and supporting local community issues.

Links through HEAR? Include volunteering of all types and give guidance related to the characteristics of a Westminster gradate. Links to Learning Futures Westminster Distinctiveness project

The University could work harder at demonstrating its commitment to a more holistic approach to CSR, not just green

(1)

Need stronger links between all roles working with students and a greater senior backing/ priority (1)

Helping disadvantaged students

Physically: class department, open more rooms – connected to network and different sites e.g. Chiswick (1)

Financial: job opportunities, help with writing CV, local community business opportunities for part-time students, RUSTA. Sponsorships: start-ups, pop-up shops, WBS, computer services, sell skills

(1)

Socially: mentoring – second year students, volunteers (internal), volunteers (external), no mobile phone workshops, teach social skills

(3)

Dear: lack of confidence, lack of aspirations, access to social groups, support service, mentoring, faculty breakdown

(1)

Helpdesk – like FixIT but social. Status- nurture through 3 years of university (1)

Provide more business opportunities for small, local companies

Influence Aramark and other major suppliers and contractors to use small to local medium enterprises (2)

Encourage sustainable operational practices of all our partners e.g. environmental, social (2)

Implement circular economy model e.g. furniture to reduce use of natural resources and waste production

Engage more social enterprises as suppliers (3)

8

How can the curriculum respect all students and their backgrounds and chance the mentality amongst younger generations?

Having more front-facing staff advising students and fulfilling for both students and staff (1)

Linking to students and future and seeing the impact beyond the now

Value being listened to – helps you to respect lecturers etc. and get the message across

Peer to peer elements help. Familiarity and consistency

Creating trust

Overarching big objective – becoming a direct to you impact. Tangible benefits e.g. sustainability projects, saving money, you get more money

(3)

Culture, consistent message. Consistent from top down

SMSC – social, moral, cultural ideas – linking every lesson back to those areas to help students engage (1)

Creating a way not to lecture them about an area that doesn’t link to them

Link to students, role models and diversity (2)

Planning, materials – creative ways to implement support for academics. Cultural changes in faculties

Consistency between all areas of study. Supporting students. Making sure it’s fed through all the faculties.

Asking students for their personal additions – emotional and interactive, students can add to it and keeps them involved

All academics – thinking about different formats, more prescribed

Understand it is more work – making students see themselves as possible academics

Online lectures: becoming lazy, too accessible and is abused. Respect for facilities and value for money. Teaching styles, room etc. Still engaged in things that applied socially.

How do we effectively share our skills?

It’s more than a monetary value; needs more people in the University

Shadowing is time-consuming

Give staff hours to pursue own projects (example: Google). Have play time on a Friday (5)

Capture and retain knowledge before people leave. YouTube and staff skills sharing. Create succession plans

(1)

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How do we “produce” socially responsible graduates?

If we want to do this, we need to mirror our commitment to being socially responsible in all aspects of our work

Integrating CSR examples into curricula across the University (do we have a map or where these are now?) (5)

Understanding what CSR is and addressing it (definition). Relating it to initiatives already in place and understanding what it means to students

Start with simple things e.g. communications being improved and using the most appropriate medium for the message under discussion. Important within a multi-cultural environment

How students help each other – do we help each other?

How can we engage the whole University community in supporting and promoting equality, diversity and inclusion? All nations – to accept people from all over the world

Ways of getting more people to talk to each other - tech ban: actually talk! Mobile-free meetings - extend WIMs to physically work elsewhere to observe the culture and dynamics of other teams - “learning walks” – showcasing what people do

(2)

UWSU needs an adaptable space that all student groups feel comfortable using (e.g. could have a pop-up bar for a particular event but could also be configured without)

(1)

How could we encourage both staff and student mobility between sites (particularly Harrow and central sites). What are the benefits of this engagement?

Roadshow – e.g. music students and art students invited to showcase on different sites (busking spots/ gallery spaces). Shuttle bus between sites?

(2)

10

Creating awareness, identity and values whilst giving back – promoting mutual charity and community relationships

Multiple links with CSR to create a bigger picture (1)

Communicating strategy as a starting point - What are our CSR targets? - Dialogue with the right roles - Time spent identifying shared values, work opportunities and facilities

(2)

CSR fair: annual networking for charities and university stakeholders Targeting a small number – depth rather than breadth of engagement

(1)

Incentivised - relationships

Local libraries – database of charities and community groups

Engaging with existing initiatives (UN, EU, NGO- led, INGO- led etc.)

Becoming aware across the university of the (illegible) of values and understanding CSR and of the existing instruments out there

(4)

Apply actively the 6 principles of responsible management education within and outside of the business school- UN (Global Compact) informed

Subscribing and implementing the United National Academic Impact Principles

Making an active link – such as UN, EU and INGO and NGO activity – between CSR and Human Rights with respect to People, Planet and Profit

Responsible use and recording of student data

Email attachments are not secure

Personal computers – working from home – what can you access? Encrypted UBSs. Access from tables/ mobile phones. Working offsite - firewalls

(1)

Who is given access? Lack of different levels (1)

Using turn it in for CVs in an assignment which carries marks

Petitions and responsibilities – social media, twitter

Helping students to manage their online reputation and understanding the implications of their online reputation

(2)

Enabling people to share ideas

Define CSR and increase awareness – establish values/ social issues important for the organisation as well as local issues

(2)

Have ways of gathering ideas and meaningfully doing something with them

Overcome the challenge of people feeling able to go to meetings etc.

Support from the University Executive Board in a more integrated strategic business planning process – link to Westminster 2020.

Optimise the face to face touch points on what the CSR objectives are (inductions, open days, development sessions, team meetings etc.)

Creating visible communications that show the achievements, plans etc. Start to get messages issues out to the wider staff community

Measurement – having metrics

Celebrate contributions and achievements

Communication: levels, interest groups, networks, target audiences, ambassadors, champions How to manage and assess the differences in opinions and how to capture

ISO 2600 – international standard. Use this to give context to communications and enforcement strategy

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Sports Ground Communities

Utilise the resources of Chiswick to work with local and national charities. Also to link up with research done by the University including staff and students

Research student needs

Improved access to research on our students/ community/ the work the University is doing including the community

Offering community group access to facilities/ resources to encourage greater student engagement (2)

Social impact – adding measurable value

Strategic priority, including senior level buy-in and strategic direction (1)

Advertised clearly. Visible to internal and external audience e.g. website home page

Own mission statement linked to the University’s vision

Data (qualitative and quantitative) and narrative to demonstrate impact

Measurable objectives

Socially responsible reputation attracts students and staff

Dedicated resources

How can we promote sustainable/ healthy, responsible eating across the University?

Advertising food on campuses effectively, including healthy options and nutritional information

Cost of food, organic food, loyalty card

Kitchen space for students (microwaves, kettles, equipment, disposable biodegradable/ recyclable cutlery

Workshops - growing space (communicate it) - new green space (NCS)

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Summary

The diversity of discussion topics reflect the breadth of the CSR agenda, as illustrated by the word cloud below.

Next Steps

This open space session is the beginning of a wider consultation process to capture the CSR risks and opportunities that

are material to our stakeholders. The CSR Support Team will be conducting a materiality assessment to identify and

prioritise areas of the CSR agenda to ensure that all activities are strategic, address stakeholder concerns and are

relevant to our business.

Materiality can be defined as “considering the economic, environmental and social impacts that cross a threshold in

affecting the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations” (Global

Report Initiative)

Material issues relate to the University’s activities, products, services and relationships within and beyond the

organisation. This consultation process will reinforce the links between CSR and our core business operations to enable

a more strategic, engaging and impactful programme, defining what CSR is for the University of Westminster and putting

it at the heart of how we do business. This process will be the foundation for the University’s first CSR report in

September 2016.

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