UWE Bristol signs Repair and Reuse Declaration in commitment to sustainable initiatives
UWE Bristol is the first UK university to sign the Repair and Reuse Declaration as a whole institution, a call to legislators and decision makers to tackle climate change through greater repair and reuse support.
In the last year alone, UWE Bristol’s Sustainability Hub – which supports staff and students to live more sustainably - has swapped 30,000 items and saved 11.6 tonnes of items from landfill, the equivalent of 76 tonnes of carbon.
The university signed the declaration ahead of International Repair Day (Saturday 18 October 2025) to reaffirm its commitment to repair and reuse initiatives. While the university’s MAKERS project had previously signed the declaration, it now has the backing of the whole university.
With the UK being the second highest producer of electronic waste per capita in the world, the Repair and Reuse Declaration is asking legislators to make repair and reuse more affordable by cutting VAT on repaired items; to expand the UK’s right to repair regulations to cover all consumer products; and to introduce requirements and targets for reuse and repair to be prioritised over recycling, among other requests.
The Declaration already has over 500 signatories, from MPs, businesses and national organisations.
UWE Bristol has a number of sustainability-led initiatives across its campuses, many of which are run by student volunteers. This includes UWE Bristol’s Repair Café, an initiative run by students, technicians, staff, community volunteers and industry helpers, repairing items brought in by members of the public for free. Since its launch two years ago, UWE Bristol has run 18 Repair Café events, amounting to 1,430 hours volunteered and saving 435kg from landfill.
UWE Bristol has recently published a guide and toolkit with the Royal Academy of Engineering to help other higher and further education institutions implement similar repair and reuse programmes, focusing on improving students’ sense of belonging and hands-on engineering skills.
Vice-Chancellor of UWE Bristol, Professor Sir Steve West, signed the declaration on behalf of the university and said: “We have built an ethos of repair and reuse at UWE that firmly supports our long-term sustainability goals and most importantly we’re putting students at the heart of these initiatives. With 20,000 visits to our Sustainability Hub in the last academic year, the appetite for adopting and promoting sustainable practices day-to-day has never been greater at UWE Bristol.
“By signing the Repair and Reuse Declaration, we want to send a clear message to policymakers and legislators that across our university community we are seeing first-hand the measurable impact repair and reuse can have. Enhanced support for repair and reuse initiatives will create skilled green jobs, tackle climate change, and achieve a circular economy.”
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