University of Plymouth drop in ethics and sustainability league table

The University of Plymouth's ranking in People & Planet’s University League has declined, despite student calls for action on university ethics.

The national ranking of 154 publicly funded universities in the UK has seen the University of Plymouth drop to 15th place, since the ethical and sustainability criteria-based University League was last published.

J Clarke, Co-Director at People & Planet comments: ‘It is not enough for universities to simply not get worse in order to hold their position in the rankings. The UK higher education sector is continually being pushed to improve on the ethics and sustainability of its operating, and it is vital that all institutions keep up with this pace.’

Plymouth People & Planet Society, a student group on campus, have been running a ‘Sweatshop Free’ campaign for years, calling for the university to take action on human and labor rights abuses in their electronics supply chain.

Tegan Godfrey, a student and campaigner at University of Plymouth stated: ‘It is frustrating to see a university with a legacy like Plymouth's slip down a really important league table through inaction. We have called for the university to go Sweatshop Free, and these results reinforce the fact that it needs to.’

In December 2018 Howard Goffin, Head of Procurement at University of Plymouth emailed the student group, stating that the university is ‘supportive of the University becoming EW [Electronics Watch] affiliated in its own right’ and will ‘look to accelerate the formal contracting from February 2019.’

J Clarke, Co-Director at People & Planet commented: ‘What is particularly disappointing in the case of the University of Plymouth is that it has had an active and repeated calls from a student campaign to improve the workers rights of those in its supply chain, one of the criteria in the University League, and these voices have been ignored to the detriment of student confidence, the university’s ranking, and workers across the globe.’

University of Gloucestershire came top of the table just ahead of 2017’s table topper Manchester Metropolitan University.

2019 is the twelfth year of publishing the People & Planet University League.