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STUOENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY UNITEO KINGOOM ANNUAL report 2022-2023

1	Introduction	2
2	Our story	4
3	Our aims	6
4	Our work and impact	7
5	Looking forward	25
6	Financial review	28
7	Our governance and management	29
8	Our details	31
Appendix 1: Our work in detail		33
Appendix 2: Audited accounts		41

INTRODUCTION 1

About this report

Students Organising for Sustainability UK (SOS-UK) is an educational charity created in response to the climate emergency and ecological crisis. We support students to learn, act and lead for sustainability. Our origins are in the student movement, and we've operated as an independent charity since 2019. Our charity number is 1184011.

The charitable objective of SOS-UK is...

“to promote sustainable development for the benefit of the public by the advancement of education of the public in the principles and practice of sustainable development, social responsibility and the protection of the natural environment through the prudent use of natural and human-made resources.”

Our annual report shares who we are and what we’re working for, and what we’ve done in 2022-23 to help us achieve this. We also share our reflections on our work, and our intentions for 2023-24. Our annual accounts are also provided.

Our 2022-23

At the end of the fourth year since the formation of SOS-UK, the scale of the challenge still ahead of us is clear. 2022 and 2023 were the hottest years since records began in the UK, and rising temperatures have led to extreme weather and climate events that harm people and planet across the world. Ecological destruction and community displacement are being livestreamed to us. Yet, government responses fail to meet the urgency of the situation, tinkering at the edges of the very systems that are producing this harm. So it’s unsurprising that our own

research found that two thirds of students feel helpless when they think about climate change. The students we support and represent recognise the gravity of the climate and ecological crisis and know that we need far more transformative change. As a student myself, I have seen firsthand that feeling a sense of agency and solidarity can transform how we respond.

These realities drive home the vital importance of SOS-UK’s projects and campaigns, all designed to shift our education system towards one that centres the climate and nature crises, in a way that centres the ways that climate justice and social justice intertwine. This means amplifying the voices of those most marginalised among us and learning lessons from movements championing a holistic approach to anti-racism, anti-imperialism, queer liberation, disability justice, feminism and climate justice.

Despite the journey still ahead of us, we can be incredibly proud of our progress when we reflect on our work over the course of 2022-23! We’ve engaged with more students than ever before this year – supporting over 231,000 of them to develop the skills, values and competences that help them take action and become part of the solution. We are also gaining traction with making sustainability spaces anti-racist. Through the RACE Report, we are now measuring racial diversity and inclusion in 142 environmental and conservation NGOs, supporting them to go further and faster with this work in order to deliver climate justice. The students leading Teach the Future saw significant campaign wins, too, as Nadia Whittome MP presented their Climate Education Bill in Parliament receiving cross party support. The Bill requires climate change and sustainability to be integrated in primary, secondary and vocational curricula and training — and students are at the helm of making it happen!

None of this would be possible without our staff, supporters and funders — thank you for enabling us to do so much this year! We hope you’ll continue with us on this journey to support students and wider society to learn, act and lead for environmental justice. Together, we will make our education system fit for purpose; we will change our education institutions from contributing to the problem, to being part of the solution; and we will move towards a vision of climate justice.

Larissa Kennedy SOS-UK President

o u r 2 STORY

Our mission

SOS-UK exists to support students to be the change that society urgently needs to get us out of the climate emergency and ecological crisis, and to deliver climate justice.

We believe that education in its current format is a central cause of societal unsustainability. It reinforces unsustainable and unjust thinking and values and that is why we need to urgently change it.

Our education system, including all its institutions and the opportunities for learning they provide, should be the central mechanism for resolving the climate emergency and avoiding ecological breakdown in a way that leads to better and fairer lives for all people.

All the campaigns and programmes we run have been instigated, led or supported by students, enabled and mentored by the staff team at SOS-UK.

We are the support crew, doing whatever we can to help students ensure their projects and campaigns are successful and impactful.

Our values

The organisational values we work by are:

student-centred inclusive and supportive driven by social justice anti-oppression and acting in solidarity responsive, dynamic and flexible reliable and honest transparent and accountable team-focused and collaborative understanding and caring.

89%

OF STUDENTS WANT WHERE THEY STUDY TO INCORPORATE AND PROMOTE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Our background

Our roots are in the student movement, having led on sustainability within the National Union of Students (UK) before spinning out as an independent charity in 2019. SOS-UK was formed in response to the growing recognition of the climate and nature crises facing our planet and the need to ensure all parts of our education system play their role in addressing our societal unsustainability.

Taking our staff with us, we set to work laying the foundations for SOS-UK to make in-roads into our three organisational aims (see chapter 3). Alongside our existing programmes and campaigns, developed whilst part of NUS, we were able to take advantage of opportunities resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, for example supporting student activists to run their own climate negotiations – Mock COP - when COP26 was postponed, and reframing the Government’s Kickstarter Scheme to drive diversity and inclusion within the environmental charity sector in our Race for Nature’s Recovery programme. Moving on from start-up mode, the last couple of years have seen us focus on ensuring our work mobilising individual change is complemented by an ability to also drive systemic change, for example creating our Directorate for Inclusion and Climate Justice. This report provides more detail on the work we’ve been doing in 2022-23 to set us on a footing towards achieving our goals.

OF STUDENTS WANT WHERE THEY STUDY TO INCORPORATE AND PROMOTE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

our AIMS 3 1 2

Getting more students leading on, and learning for, sustainability

Repurposing the education system around the climate emergency and ecological crisis

When students lead on sustainability they develop the knowledge, values, skills, and competencies required to make them great sustainability leaders. We don’t just want organisations to do sustainability for students, it should be done by, with, and through students.

Sustainability should be woven through every subject like a golden thread. Every student should be a sustainability student, and every subject a sustainability subject. The education system should serve as a force for good in response to the challenges that society faces.

Making sustainability more inclusive, so it is for everyone

Our research has shown that the environmental sector is massively underrepresented in racial diversity. It’s well evidenced that the negative impacts of sustainability inaction disproportionately affect people of colour and we’re building on this to drive forward inclusion work across the intersections of inequalities and underrepresentation in the environment and sustainability movement.

CHANGE needs to happen now

to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and nature decline. By refocusing our education system on these goals, we stand to influence the leaders of future generations. We’ll also see immediate impact as our education system and its institutions are deeply embedded in our society. Siblings, parents, grandparents, friends, teachers and colleagues – everyone has a connection to education.

our work 4 AND IMPACT

We work to deliver systemic change in the way education providers and educators frame and teach sustainability. In both pre-16 and post-16 education, we want to see people in education being taught about sustainability in an integrated, relevant and solutions-centred way, with them being supported to apply their knowledge and skills in real life, not just reciting it in exams.

We also know that it’s not just in classrooms and lecture theatres that the knowledge, skills, values and competences needed to drive sustainability across society are developed. We believe that all elements of the education system should be repurposed around achieving sustainability and climate justice.

For this reason, we’re working to change the fabric of the institutions in which learning takes place, including their buildings and estates along with their policies and cultures, so that they exemplify positive sustainable and equitable practices. It’s also the motivation behind our programmes and campaigns that directly provide students with ‘real-world’ opportunities to develop the capabilities that will help them, and society, to become more sustainable and just.

We seek out and support students with good ideas, helping them develop their plans and supporting them to access funding so they can see their ideas turn into a reality - and achieve

real impact. A significant number of our programmes and campaigns have been started this way, including long-standing activities such as Green Impact, Student Switch Off, Student Eats, Responsible Futures, and Hedgehog Friendly Campus. These are now all national (or even international) programmes of work, engaging thousands of students and staff in sustainability. We're proud that our work is led or supported locally by students, in keeping with our objective of getting more students leading on, and learning for, sustainability.

Our work is organised around our three directorates, which are aligned to our three aims:

Within each directorate, we work towards achieving our goals through delivering:

Programmes
Engagement Campaigns Education Training and events Inclusion and Climate Justice Research and consultancy

Through working towards our goals, in 2022-23 we...

Engaged over 231,000 students

Enabled over

1,800

organisations

Supported over 39,000 staff Delivered over 7,700 actions and activities

Saved over kg CO2 330,000

ENGAGEMENT

Our engagement work reaches students and staff through creating opportunities outside the 'classroom'. We recognise that the experiences people have in their everyday lives are hugely valuable in supporting the development of skills, knowledge, values and competences needed to lead on sustainability.

Our engagement work addresses the need to take action now and recognises that lifestyle change and system change are deeply connected - both are essential to tackling the climate and biodiversity crises.

Our work puts individuals and teams at the centre, empowering them to be agents of change. They frequently engage the disengaged, with our work often being the first step on their sustainability journey. This in turn helps create a pipeline for our future campaigners, to challenge the status quo of both their places of study/and or work, and also, wider society.

Read highlights of our work in 2022-23 in our examples here or find out about our full suite of engagement work in appendix 1.

Getting more students leading on, and learning for, sustainability with How Farming can Cool the Planet

How Farming can Cool the Planet (HFCCTP) enables students, youth food justice activists, and young farmers to share their varied experiences and values about food, farming, the climate and nature with each other. The project helps them to find common ground, and to develop a united youth voice, so they can tackle the climate and nature crises through food and farming together.

SOS-UK works with the National Federation of Young Farmers Clubs which has 23,000 members and is one of the largest youth organisations in the UK; and the youth branch of the Landworkers' Alliance, FLAME - a self-led group of young activists advocating for food and land justice.

HFCCTP successfully brings together students, young farmers and youth food justice activists who commonly have quite different experiences and values. Young farmers often feel attacked by environmental activists, activists often feel farming needs to change because of the climate and nature crisis, and students often campaign for changes like beef bans on campuses based on global carbon statistics without fully understanding the impacts of different farming systems, particularly in the UK. Through farm visits and farming events we provide a safe space for

participants to share their different experiences and values with each other. Rather than focusing on what they don’t agree on, we encourage them to find common ground, and to therefore, ultimately, have a united voice so they can tackle the climate crisis through food and farming together.

Unless students are studying agriculture they don’t tend to get the opportunity to visit farms. Despite this, many are passionate about the climate and nature crises and in research conducted by SOS-UK in 2021, 78% of students said that if they knew more about the environmental impact of food production, they would be willing to make changes to reduce their impact. This project is

enabling students to see and understand how food is produced first hand, to understand the positive impact agroecological farming methods can have, to talk to young people who have spent their lives producing food, and to those who are advocating for food and land justice.

Our farm visits, events and resources have directly reached around 300 young people across our three organisations, and many more via the resources that have been created and shared via social media. The respectful way participants in the project have listened to each other and learned from each other has been inspiring and unexpected (even by our funders initially!). Share the experience through our photographic summary!

“HFCCTP provides an opportunity for students to learn more about the agrifood system. Through field visits and interactive activities, I have gained new knowledge of sustainable agriculture outside the classroom.” Ruihan, University of Oxford

With funding until summer 2024, we will be giving students, young farmers, and FLAME members the opportunity to go to the Oxford Real Farming Conference. We will work with podcaster, Dan Grist, to create a podcast that follows the participants’ journeys of being at this immersive twoday event attended by 1800 people.

Following this will be visits to Low Carbon Agriculture 24, the only farming event focused exclusively on low carbon; and Groundswell, the regenerative agriculture festival. Finally, we’re looking for funding to continue the collaboration and support students, young farmers, and FLAME members to agree on three government asks that we can share and advocate for.

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Source: English Heritage
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Getting more students leading on, and learning for, sustainability with Green Impact and English Heritage

Every year, hundreds of students are trained by SOS-UK in an IEMA-approved training course to become Green Impact Environmental Auditors. These trained auditors go on to conduct sustainability audits in a variety of settings both on and off campus in an exciting volunteering opportunity that fosters student and staff collaboration for sustainability.

Green Impact aims to celebrate and recognise sustainability achievements whilst also providing a framework to improve the sustainability performance of organisations. Teams of staff from participating organisations work through an online toolkit with criteria and projects to help them create a more sustainable workplace. At the end of the programme cycle, Green Impact student auditors are trained to assess teams’ progress to verify that they have completed the actions, as well as provide feedback on areas for improvement. Following the audit, all participating teams are awarded a Bronze, Silver or Gold award based on the audit results.

In 2022-23, we launched a Green Impact pilot with English Heritage, a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. Ten English Heritage sites were audited by 28 students in spring 2023.

The success of the 2023 pilot has led to the roll out of the programme across the whole organisation with the next Green Impact audits of English Heritage scheduled for winter 2024.

Students who undertake the training and practical experience of conducting an audit:

Receive IEMA approved training, delivered by SOS-UK
Develop transferable communication, teamwork, decision-making and time-management skills
Develop their understanding of what is happening on sustainability across the organisation they audit
Develop their knowledge of environmental management techniques Receive a digital badge to demonstrate their achievements.

Student auditors shared reflections on their experiences with Green Impact:

“Having previously worked on another sustainability project I was keen to learn more about Heritage Sustainability. It was great to see behind the scenes of English Heritage, knowledge I can apply to my studies in 3rd year in my Heritage module to develop my future knowledge as a Sustainability leader.” Michelle, Edge Hill University

“Volunteering with Green Impact was such a great opportunity. It allowed me to work on my team management skills, I met some great and interesting people, and allowed me to learn some great new skills, thinking creatively and leading meetings. It has expanded my knowledge of the inner workings of the heritage sector, of the values of sustainability and teamwork which ensure that heritage sites are better protected.”

Cat, University of Southampton

Our 2022-23 engagement highlights include:

We progressed our work supporting students living in energy poverty in the private rented sector. We completed our two-year Homes Fit for Study campaign, supporting thousands of students by providing advice on navigating the household energy sector and guidance on how to save energy in their homes. Alongside our student engagement work, we completed in-depth research into students’ experiences of their homes and sent Freedom of Information Requests to local councils on their enforcement of Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards, and Publishing our findings secured great media interest, with over 20 pieces of coverage, including ITV News and the Evening Standard, resulting in around 1.28 million views.

Responding to demand from students, we continued our successful work in the field of biodiversity and food and farming. We accredited 92 universities, colleges, and schools through our Hedgehog Friendly Campus mark, helping students and staff make their campuses more nature friendly. Our How Farming Can Cool the Planet project, bringing together diverse young voices in the farming community, was one of the few to get continuation funding, with Mark Spencer MP, the Minister of State for Food, Farming and Fisheries stating, “Defra should support more projects like this”

We continued to engage thousands of students and staff in sustainability action predominantly through our Green Impact, Student Switch Off, Learning Academy, and Hedgehog Friendly Campus programmes. Cumulatively across our engagement work we engaged over 100,000 students and staff across 1,400 organisations.

Things we learnt about our engagement work this year include:

There is real interest from students around the topic of food and farming and its relationship with climate change and nature decline. Over summer 2023 we carried out soil and biodiversity testing on 10 university & college owned farms, with 171 students taking on this opportunity. Some of the reasons they took part included: “I hope to learn more about what impact the soil can have on the carbon in our environment, as I had never considered it a key role in greener farming practices before”, “I'm studying Environment and feel powerless against climate change…contributing even in a small way is something I can do”, and “I love to be outside and if I can do that while gaining practical skills, even better!”
Our evaluation work shows that students continue to enjoy the auditor training opportunities linked to our engagement programmes including Green Impact, Fairtrade Universities and Colleges, and Hedgehog Friendly Campus – it enables them to advance their knowledge on sustainability, but also develop new skills, and gain insight and experience of the ‘behind the scenes’ running of their universities and other organisations in their local communities.

EDUCATION

Our education work focuses on transforming the formal education system, from early years through to adult education, to address the climate and ecological crisis. Through systems-change campaigns and whole-institutional change programmes, we work to ensure all students develop the knowledge, skills, attributes, and values to act for climate and social justices now and in the future.

Read highlights of our work in 2022-23 in our examples here or find out about our full suite of engagement work in appendix 1.

Repurposing the education system around the climate emergency and ecological crisis through the Mock Education Ministers Summit

The Mock COP campaign brought together 227 young people from 89 countries for their virtual, two-day Mock Education Ministers Summit (Mock EMS) to raise ambition for climate education ahead of COP28.

Worldwide many young people are frustrated with the lack of quality climate education in their schools, universities and colleges. For example, David (Mock COP Campaign Coordinator) shared how the limited climate education in schools in Nigeria focuses on the problems and ignores the solutions.

The Mock EMS supported national youth delegates to assess the state of climate education in their own country and for them to suggest ways forward. The summit began on International Youth Day (12 August 2023) to show the importance of listening to and including youth voices in policy making. Delegates engaged in panel discussions, negotiations and voting sessions to produce their unified youth statement on climate education.

The statement includes the first-ever youth definition for quality climate education, describing it as:

embedded across all subjects,
solutions and action-oriented,
empowering and critical, inclusive and intersectional, and free from conflicts of interest.

The statement also sets out policy asks for education ministries and includes a checklist to evaluate policy and keep education ministers accountable for their progress toward improving climate education.

Alfredo, a Peruvian delegate shared his experience of being part of the event:

“Participating in the Mock Education Minister Summit was a very gratifying experience. This event, as a whole, empowered me with knowledge, insights, and strategies to advocate for climate education in my country. I feel inspired to work collaboratively with others in order to address climate change.”

The work completed during the Mock Education Ministers Summit will support the wider campaigning activity of the Mock COP team, for example developing high-level sessions led by students at COP28 in Dubai in November 2023.

Repurposing the education system around the climate emergency and ecological crisis through SDG Curriculum Mapping

In 2022-23 SOS-UK worked with the University of Liverpool Management School (ULMS) and Liverpool Guild of Students to pilot a new curriculum mapping methodology supporting students to map their experience of teaching and learning against a set of sustainability criteria looking at what is taught and how, and the skills students are supported to develop.

Since 2018, SOS-UK has worked with 16 institutions, and nearly 400 of their students to facilitate student-led curriculum mapping. The mapping methodology and support was developed in response to student demand for sustainability and experiential learning to develop sustainability skills, evidenced by SOS-UK's sustainability skills survey.

The original mapping methodology (developed in collaboration with the University of Winchester and Winchester Students’ Union) supports students to map sustainability criteria against module descriptors, reading lists and other documentary sources. This student-led approach has led to:

Development of knowledge, understanding and transferrable skills amongst students taking part, including sustainability, auditing, teamwork, data analysis, critical thinking and global citizenship
Linking the SDGs to other initiatives within the institution and/or students’ union
Engaging teaching staff and senior leadership
Reporting on action on the SDGs and sustainability
Identifying areas of good practice, and areas for improvement

Through the new mapping methodology, students are supported to think critically about the role their modules can play in contributing to sustainability and are offered a space to consider each week of teaching and learning. Findings directly reflect students’ experiences of teaching and learning, amplifying student voice in this area of work, providing educators with in-depth data about SDG coverage and sustainability skills and how their module was perceived by students.

81 students took part in mapping over half of ULMS’ 154 modules and a further 147 modules from across the wider university covering Science and Engineering, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Health and Life Sciences. 2,563 weeks of teaching and learning experiences were mapped in total!

The findings captured the extent to which topics related to the SDGs are embedded in students’ experiences of teaching and learning, the range of sustainability skills students are supported to develop, and the teaching methods that can contribute to enabling sustainability learning. For example, the ULMS audit found students were supported to develop critical thinking skills in 62% of all mapped weeks of teaching and learning.

The students involved shared their experiences of taking part in the mapping, telling us:

“I learned that teaching has a larger purpose than just exams and assignments.”

“I feel a sense of success knowing that my ideas and experiences will make a difference.”

“I think through doing the project, my knowledge of the subjects improved significantly.”

In 2023-24, both the University of Liverpool Management School and Liverpool Guild of Students are working with SOS-UK to continue mapping remaining modules. Full data sets will be provided to Directors of Studies for each of the programmes at ULMS, to provide an evidence base for decision making around module and programme development.

SOS-UK and the Guild have also co-created, with students, statements on what a decolonised education and learning experience can look like. In the 2023-24 mapping project, students will map their experiences of teaching and learning against these statements, determining to what extent their education aligns with their vision for decolonising education.

Our 2022-23 education highlights include:

We supported young people to have a voice on national and international stages on climate change and education, building our position as leaders and conveners for youth voice and advocacy for quality, solutionscentred climate education. For example, internationally through our work at COP27 in Sharm-el-Sheikh, followed by the Mock Education Ministers Summit (as above). And in the UK through our support of the two Youth Focal Points for Sustainability and Climate Change, who will work with the Department for Education on the implementation and evaluation of the Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy, acting as critical friends and youth representatives.

Our long-term programmatic work continued to grow and develop through

Responsible Futures, Curriculum Mapping, and ESD Changemakers. A new year-long methodology for curriculum mapping was established and tested with University of Liverpool Management School and the preparations for an international pilot of Responsible Futures are underway, working in partnership with the International Association of Universities (IAU). The same success was seen in our wellbeing-focused work where we delivered the first full year of the Drugs and Alcohol Impact programme post-pilot, with great uptake and success.

Our campaigning work saw significant progress and gained political traction in 2022-23. We launched the 1.5 Degrees campaign, analysing engineering, economics, law, politics and health courses at the top-ranked universities around the world and assessing whether their teaching is compatible with keeping global temperature increase below 1.5C. Our Teach the Teacher and Teach the Parent campaigns extended grassroots engagement and impact worldwide, with sessions taking place in 21 countries. In the UK, we launched ‘Curriculum for a Changing Climate’ – the tracked changes review of the national curriculum for England. This first-of-its-kind report covered KS3 and KS4, with plans

underway to extend this to primary and to A-Levels. Nadia Whittome MP presented the Climate Education Bill in Parliament – the first-ever written by students and young people. 30 cross-party MPs demonstrated their support at a drop-in event alongside the reading. Teach the Future also hosted parliamentary events in Scotland and Wales, alongside the publication of updated asks in each nation.

We launched the Green Schools Revolution project – our first major programme delivered in schools.

Through three-years of #iwill funding we’ll help school pupils to green their schools, helping them meet the commitments of the Department for Education's (DfE) Climate Change and Sustainability Strategy. This activity takes place across four strands, each with a different focus, but each delivered with students taking a leadership role in designing and driving action within their schools.

Things we learnt about our education work this year include :

We have reflected closely on our role at COP, and the impact of our attendance, and understand how to position ourselves to have the greatest impact and be able to most effectively platform young people to advocate for quality climate education.
We understand the significant demand for whole-institution approaches to ESD in universities and colleges globally, and have worked to deepen this understanding in order to develop the Responsible Futures international pilot.
We have developed more targeted interventions, like the ‘Curriculum for a Changing Climate’ and the forthcoming PSRBs work (see section 5), which, if we get it right, will help to remove barriers to progress on education system reform.

INCLUSION AND CLIMATE JUSTICE

Our inclusion and climate justice work focuses on ensuring sustainability is inclusive and diverse. We know not everyone is affected by climate change and the ecological crisis equally. Similarly we know that not everyone has the same access to opportunities that contribute to tackling these dual crises.

We're working to make sure the organisations at the forefront of tackling the issues are reflective of the communities they represent. We also need to ensure all students wanting to spearhead action through their careers in this sector are not limited by barriers related to their ethnicity, gender identity, sexual identity, disability, social or educational background, or any other characteristic or attribute.

Our work in this area spans the education sector and the professional pathways connected with addressing climate and ecological issues for progressing positive good in terms of both people and planet. By joining up these two aspects, we’re seeking to get to the root of the structural barriers that are maintaining the status quo and preventing climate justice.

Read highlights of our work in 2022-23 in our examples here or find out about our full suite of engagement work in appendix 1.

Making sustainability more inclusive, so it is for everyone through The RACE Report

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2022 RACE Report diversity data for
2% 7%
overall staff, based on 91
organisations
People of colour and other
racially/ethnically minoritised
identities
27%
Not disclosed
White identities
64%
Any other ethnicities
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The RACE Report (Racial Action for the Climate Emergency) seeks to speed up diversity and inclusion in environment, conservation, climate and sustainability charities and funders. 2022 saw the publication of the first year of the campaign, and launch of year two – both to great success.

Environment and conservation professions are amongst the least diverse in the UK. We created The RACE Report to focus on charities and funders working on environmental and conservation issues, highlighting the need for greater representation in sustainability and climate action. The RACE Report calls for organisations to commit to holding themselves to account to deliver on these needs by participating in The RACE Report’s annual data gathering and reporting initiative. Organisations submit data on the race and ethnicity profile of their staff and trustees, SOS-UK analyse and compile this data into a published report.

In 2022, a total of 175 charities, trusts and foundations signed up to The RACE Report, demonstrating their support for the initiative. 94 organisations demonstrated their commitment by submitting data at some level through the inaugural data submission process, which included three categories of data. Of the 94 who submitted data, eight were funders and 86 were charities. In the first-year data was aggregated, with the report published online, with no organisations named.

Headline data from year one found that just 7% of staff overall in participating organisations were from racially or ethnically minoritised groups, compared to 14% of the UK’s working population that are currently in employment, who identify as Black, Asian or other Minority Ethnicities. However, 82% of organisations stated that they have fully or partially implemented a race equity/ diversity and inclusion strategy, or similar, suggesting more work is needed to deliver on these strategies.

Year two of the campaign was launched in April 2023 and we’re working on securing long-term funding for the campaign to ensure we can track the changes in diversity and inclusion we want to see. We also want to enhance the data collection with more engagement elements to support participating organisations and contribute towards a sector-wide movement for delivering on racial and ethnic inclusion. With a growing resource of data and examples of positive practice through the annual data submissions, we will be celebrating successes and showcasing examples of impactful approaches through publication of case studies and knowledge exchange focused webinars. From 2023 onwards The RACE Report will publish transparency cards for in individual participating organisation sharing their organisational data depending on their size. We will also launch a bi-annual staff perceptions survey to better understand the experiences of diversity and inclusion in the environmental charity sector.

Making sustainability more inclusive, so it is for everyone through Invest for Change

Invest for Change is our campaign transforming how universities invest their money to secure a more just, liveable future for all. During 2022-23, we supported SU officers across the UK to run ethical finance campaigns resulting in several significant wins.

UK universities have over £20 billion invested across the global economy. These investments are meant to support students and further universities' long-term mission. But they are flowing into an economic system that is working against the interests of students and the world they will graduate into – a world of deepening inequality, deadly international conflicts and climate and ecological breakdown.

Invest for Change campaign is working to change this. We support student leaders to campaign for their universities to invest in the interests of young people, frontline communities and the planet, not against them. To invest in a liveable, just future for all.

Maia said:

“I am thrilled to have led this successful divestment campaign and worked so closely with students, staff and Council members to make Royal Holloway the 101 UK university to divest from fossil fuels. All of this was made possible by the Invest for Change campaign. SOS-UK's constant support and wealth of knowledge was absolutely vital throughout. The work they do in empowering young leaders to be at forefront of ethical finance campaigning and demystifying the world of investment is so important; it has galvanised in me a new passion for this branch of climate action and enabled me to bring together the Royal Holloway community for a common cause. I am excited to see the next steps as the University and the Students’ Union take together to address the climate crisis and how Invest for Change will continue empowering young leaders to effect impactful policy change."

Invest for Change is funded by Friends Provident Foundation, and thanks to their support we are able to continue with this work. In the next year we plan to build upon the momentum created by wins such as Royal Holloway’s, scaling up our work to normalise ethical finance as a core part of university sustainability activity.

Our 2022-23 inclusion and climate justice highlights include:

December 2022 saw the publication of the first ever RACE Report, for which 91 organisations submitted their staff data, actively participating in the initiative, proving its potential to have an impact as it grows, and organisations’ commitment to making progress on diversity. This first year proved the methodology and process for growing sectoral buy-in to progress racial and ethnic inclusion in the environment sector. Media coverage for The RACE Report reached national and sector specific outlets (Edie, The Guardian, The Voice, Civil Society, Countryside Jobs, and more), critical for initiating pro-active engagement with the campaign.

By September 2023 we had hit our target for participation in year two of The RACE Report (launched in April 2023) - 142 organisations submitted data on their action on EDI and on the diversity of their staff! 2023 also saw 43 organisations participate in The RACE Report’s staff perceptions survey with 1552 people working across the sector responding. The staff perceptions survey was a new development for 2023, it was open to people from all backgrounds and identities, with the responses used to identify differences in experiences and perceptions between respondents with white identities and those who identify as people of colour or from other ethnically or racially minoritised groups. A report on the survey findings will be published in tandem with the main diversity data report.

Our ethical finance campaigns continue to grow in their impact, Invest for Change has seen increasing engagement from institutions as student campaigners, supported by SOS-UK. Successes of this campaign include training over 150 students on ethical finance, supporting students to attend bank AGMs, and empowering students to engage with their university finance committees resulting in complete or partial divestment from fossil fuels.

We launched our new campaign Breaking the Bank over the university welcome week period. The campaign aims to support students to pressure banks to stop funding fossil fuel companies. Through the campaign we worked directly with student activists at 3 key universities, supporting them to challenge the ties between their institutions and the banks that are pouring billions into fossil fuel expansion.

Things we learnt about our inclusion and climate justice work this year include:

Engagement with The RACE Report is growing as a result of proactive relationship-building to establish organisations’ trust in SOS-UK as convenors of The RACE Report. Increased amplification by the media is also supporting a growth in participation as pressure mounts for organisations to demonstrate their commitments and action on EDI. We need to ensure the narrative for the communications of the annual data findings and those from the new staff perceptions survey need to strike a balance between being impactful and providing impetus for driving forward progress on racial and ethnic inclusion in the sector alongside securing the confidence of the organisations taking part. We’re learning that we need to work closely with participating organisations through a consultative process before publication to achieve this.
The RACE Report is also providing a positive platform to drive forward conversations and impactful work for progressing wider inclusion work within the environment, food and farming, and education sectors through consultancy offerings and development of new programmatic work in this area.

With the right support, student officers are able and willing to lead on challenging their institutions on incredibly complex topics. The most effective route has been through 1-2-1 support. By taking officers' ideas and translating them into formats palatable to university decision making bodies such as papers for meetings or policy documents we’ve found that progress can be fast-tracked. This style of support helped overcome some of the barriers to officers engaging with ethical finance, such as a perceived lack of understanding, or imposter syndrome. We plan to work across our directorates to adopt this approach in other areas of our work.

5 looking FORWARD Within our Engagement directorate, for 2023-24 we plan to continue our existing array of programmes and campaigns. Responding to student demand, we’ll seek funding to build on our impactful nature-focused work, aiming to do more on wilding on school, college, and university grounds, and complete our three-year Farming For Carbon and Nature project working with universities who own farmland.

Given the similar high demand for our work on energy poverty through Homes Fit for Study we’ll seek out opportunities that allow us to support students in navigating the cost of living and energy crises and continue successful partnerships with organisations like Smart Energy GB and Hubbub.

We will look at ways to expanding our Learning Academy offer in addition to our existing opportunities, which bring bespoke sustainability training, to education and community organisations.

In the coming year, the Education directorate will continue to support student-led campaigning to integrate sustainability and climate justice through all parts of the education system. In the UK, through Teach the Future we will support students to maintain pressure across parliament to support the Climate Education Bill and prepare for a possible General Election in 2024. We will also launch further ‘tracked changes’ subjects for our ‘Curriculum for a Changing Climate’, with A Levels and Primary Curriculum in the pipeline. Internationally, our delegation at COP28 will focus on platforming young people alongside ministers to advocate for quality, integrated, solutions-centred climate education and utilising the MockEMS Youth Statement as a key tool for this advocacy.

We will begin to explore how we can pressure and support organisations with influence in the education system such as PSRBs (Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies) to include sustainability in their requirements of professional and regulated courses in colleges and universities.

We’re excited as our Green Schools Revolution heads into its first full academic year of

delivery, across Teach the Teacher, Climate Action Plans, and Wilding in secondary schools, as well as the full launch of the Future Forum which is designed to strengthen youth voice in our environmental charities in the UK.

Our programmatic work focused on curriculum change (Responsible Futures, Curriculum Mapping, and ESD Changemakers) is all projected to grow in 2023-24, and, excitingly, will include the launch of the international pilot of Responsible Futures, in partnership with the International Association of Universities. Finally, our wellbeing work is projected to continue to grow, with development underway for a targeted IBA offer on campuses alongside further growth of the Drug and Alcohol Impact programme, following its successful pilot.

Our 2023-24 plans for the Inclusion and Climate Justice directorate focus on growing and enhancing our existing workstreams as well as developing our internal practice on equality, diversity and inclusion.

Our ethical finance work continues to go from strength to strength and in 2023-24 we look to increase our support for students attending finance AGMs and supporting students to lead on engaging with their institutions to rethink their investment and partnership working to cut ties from the fossil fuel and arms industries.

We will work to secure legacy funding for the next five years for The RACE Report, to ensure the long-term continuation of the campaign. To ensure our communications for The RACE Report gain meaningful traction and align well with other events, we’ve decided to move the annual publication date for The RACE Report to sit within Race Equality Week, meaning the 2023 report will be published in February 2024. We also plan to increase the engagement

opportunities facilitated by The RACE Report team, to create a community of shared learning and practice amongst participating organisations. Our flagship engagement opportunity will be an inperson event held during 2023-24.

Using The RACE Report as a springboard, we’ll work on growing relationships with key stakeholders within the environment and tertiary education sectors to further establish our reputation for delivering impactful and high-quality consultancy.

We will also look internally at our own policies, practices and culture through the development and launch of an SOS-UK EDI strategy to ensure we not only hold ourselves accountable to delivering on EDI for our staff, volunteers and stakeholders we work with to thrive, but also have a clear strategy for doing so.

SOS-International continues to be hosted by SOS-UK, with three members of staff based in Europe (Belgium and the Netherlands). In 2023-24 SOS-International will re-launch and host the annual Green Office Movement and SOS-International summit, in partnership with a host Green Office, University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands. This will reignite engagement with SOSInternational members, as the first in-person post covid-19 pandemic.

Across the organisation as a whole, in 2023-24 we’ll focus on embedding our new strategic framework across the organisation to guide us in the prioritisation of our work to achieve maximum impact against our re-defined aims. We’ll develop our evaluation framework to support decision-making as well as helping us assess our progress towards the aims and outcomes we set out in our framework.

6 financial REVIEW We are pleased with the year-end position of a surplus of £625,779. This takes our total funds to £ 1,552,722, of which £1,310,914 are restricted and £241,808 are unrestricted. Our revenues grew for the fourth consecutive year to £2,716,217 (£1,337,953 in 2019/20; £1,403,862 in 2020/21; £1,788,129 in 2021/22;). In 2022/23, 69% of our income came from grants and donations (£1,883,543, compared to £971,374 in 2021/22), 26% from our programmes (£689,008, compared to £641,720 in 2021/22), 5% from trading (£142,675 compared to £175,035 in 2021/22).

Our reserves policy is that we have three months of unrestricted reserves available at all times. Our unrestricted costs in 2022/23 were £983,911, which works out at £247,999 per quarter. At the year-end we had £257,799 in unrestricted reserves. This equates to 96 days’ worth of unrestricted costs, meaning that our reserves policy target is met.

The trustees maintain a register of risks and review them annually. The main risks facing the charity for the year ahead relate to loss of income, loss of key staff and safeguarding issues. The top twenty risks by rank are divided amongst our director team and the directors work with us to mitigate each risk.

Within the accounts, we have again stated our gender and ethnicity pay gaps. The charity had 38 full pay relevant employees. Excluding student staff, the lowest paid salary was £25,522 and the highest paid salary was £72,947. Student staff are paid Real Living Wage. The median basic salary was £33,762. Our mean gender pay gap was 19.8% and our mean ethnicity pay gap was 15.5% - both figures have shrunk as anticipated from 2021-22 % (25.6% and 22.8% respectively in 2021/22). The trustees note that pay gaps tend to vary considerably in small charities like SOSUK, but are pleased that both gaps have shrunk over the last year, in part down to our inclusive recruitment practices and use of positive action in recruitment.

our GOVERNANCE & 7 MANAGEMENT

SOS-UK is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) governed by a constitution. The members of SOS-UK are the ten trustees. The Board, comprising of the trustees, meets quarterly and it is chaired by Richard Dunne. In 2022-23 we to added four new trustees to the Board, through a process of external advertisement and a competitive recruitment process led by the Board. The new trustees who joined us in 2022-23 were fully inducted and trained including an introduction to the organisation and an overview of their legal and fiduciary duties. All four new members of the Board are young trustees.

We, the trustees have read and understood the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit and are confident that all SOS-UK’s programmes and campaigns deliver our charitable objects, progress the issues we want to see changed and deliver public benefit. Our role, as trustees of the charity, is to provide insight and advice on the strategic direction of the organisation, in addition to monitoring and managing risk and ensuring the charity is well managed and impactful. We have delegated authority for operational issues to the director team, led by the Executive Director.

In 2022, we commenced work on a strategic framework for the offering us the balance of clarity and cohesion needed to understand, structure and communicate our work with the flexibility required to support our agile, dynamic and flexible way of working. With support from New Philanthropy Capital we engaged with a full range of our stakeholders – institution contacts, our funders and the young people we support – alongside our staff team to scrutinise and define the direction of the organisation. The strategic framework was signed off in June 2023 with the focus now moving to embedding the framework in our decision-making and ways of working across the organisation.

In 2023, SOS-UK Board of trustees established three sub-committees to provide action-

oriented and focused working within the wider Board. The sub-groups feed into the full Board but are designed to enable a greater speed of working, flexibility and opportunity to be reactive to organisational needs of SOS-UK and sectors we serve. Whilst the full Board meets quarterly, subcommittees are able to meet on an ad-hoc basis to drive forward key aspects of organisational direction, shaping, and operational decision making. The three sub-committees are:

1.People and culture
2.Finance and risk
3.Ideas, innovation and implementation

SOS-UK has separate governance and is financially independent from its founding

organisation - the National Union of Students (NUS). SOS-UK is not a part of the NUS Group. Our independent governance is reinforced through our independent chairperson, however our link with NUS is maintained by the current NUS president serving on our trustee board. NUS also provide SOS-UK with operational support and facilities and these arrangements are set out in a detailed memorandum of understanding. Similarly, SOS-UK’s pay and remuneration remains based on the NUS framework. This was established in 2014 and was initially set on the National Joint Council (NJC) framework. The NUS pay framework and job evaluation scheme forms a part of all SOS-UK staff terms and conditions of employment. The trustee board is supportive of the staff trade union and trade union representatives attend all trustee board and board subcommittee meetings. In addition, the director team meet quarterly with trade union representatives, and monthly with the director with oversight for human resources.

The trustees have been monitoring our diversity data and are pleased that the charity has become more ethnically diverse over the last year. We are continually looking to further improve our performance in this area, across the full range of diversity characteristics and also recognise that statistics are only part of the picture – we want to ensure all staff members feel included within the organisation no matter their background or identity.

our DETAILS 8 Students Organising for Sustainability is a Charitable Incorporate Organisation registered by the Charity Commission in England and Wales.

We were registered on 20 June 2019 and this is our fourth annual report. The audited accounts and this report cover the period 01 October 2022 to 30 September 2023. We bank with The Cooperative Bank and our auditors are Harts Limited of Macclesfield

Our trustees are Carole Parkes, Chloe Ferguson (appointed April 2023), Ellen Fearon (resigned February 2023), Emma de Saram (appointed April 2023), Hannah Thomas, Harriet Williams, Larissa Kennedy (SOS-UK President), Ludovico Caminati (appointed April 2023), Richard Dunne (SOS-UK Chair and safeguarding lead), Serene Esuruoso, Scarlett Westbrook (appointed April 2023) and Zamzam Ibrahim (resigned June 2023).

SOS-UK is managed on a day-to-day basis by Jamie Agombar, Executive Director, and the director team of Joanna Romanowicz (Director of Engagement), Quinn Runkle (Director of Education), Manu Maunganidze (Co-director of Inclusion and Climate Justice and Meg Baker (Co-director of Inclusion and Climate Justice).

You can find out more about our trustees and the whole SOS-UK team on our website.

T H A N K Y O U for your continued support for O U R W O R K

The trustees and directors are incredibly grateful to our partners, supporters, funders for their continued support. With your continued support, we look forward to helping more students deliver transformational sustainability initiatives over the years ahead. We are particularly grateful to our brilliant team of staff, who consistently work so hard to ensure we are a high-performing and impactful charity that leads by example.

Students Organising for Sustainability UK Charity number: 1184011

c/o NUS Charity, Snape Road, Macclesfield, SK10 2NZ

www.sos-uk.org hello@sos-uk.org

appendix 1 OUR WORK IN DETAIL

Engagement

PROJECT	DETAILS	2022-23 ACHIEVEMENTS
Fairtrade Universities and Colleges	Our framework and accreditation for embedding ethical practices throughout	In 2022-23, 12 more universities gained Fairtrade status.
	campus
	Our UNESCO award-winning	This year we launched new
	sustainability awards and	toolkit software, investing in
Green Impact	engagement programme for staff to embed sustainability	the programme to improve participant experience. We
	in their workplaces,	also launched the Green
	supported by trained	Impact Dentistry
	students.	programme.
	A programme of work	We engaged over 13,000
	supporting students across	students in home energy
Homes Fit for Study	Great Britain, reducing their	efficiency, and engaged with
	exposure to energy poverty	MPs and members of the
	through audits and energy	House of Lords to put the
	advice	issue of poor quality student
		housing on the agenda.
		This year we’ve worked with
		more private halls to engage
Student Switch Off	Our multi-award-winning campaign within student accommodation which achieves	students in different accommodation in the first steps of sustainable action.
	quantifiable energy, waste and water reduction through improved student sustainability literacy and competition.	We’ve also worked to ensure a pathway of sustainable action through supporting students in private rented accommodation,
		including working with Smart
		Energy GB.

PROJECT	DETAILS	2022-23 ACHIEVEMENTS
	Our hub of learning and	Our Learning Academy
Learning Academy	development for students, student representatives, and	continued to see both off the shelf e.g. Carbon Literacy and
	institution staff.	bespoke training packages in
		demand this year.
	Using university and college
Farming for Carbon and Nature	farmland to capture carbon and restore nature, we’re working closely with farmers, universities, colleges and a range of technical experts to develop	We supported 171 students to take and test 600 soil samples for carbon levels working with Loughborough University and 10 university-owned farms.
	and pilot the approach.
	Helping students from different	We ran farm visits to Yeo Valley
How farming can cool the planet	backgrounds find a united voice so they can tackle the climate crisis through food and farming	Farm and Tolhurst Organic Farm and made a short film based on students’ experiences
	together.	of the project to help us
		communicate its impact
	Our network supports staff and
Sustainable Food	students to collaboratively	In 2022-23 we ran three
and Growing Network	agree and achieve ambitious targets, link up different food	support days for members of the network, bringing together
	and growing projects on	students and staff in all
	campus, learn and be inspired	participating universities.
	by other institution.
Students for Trees	This student led network supports students across the UK to learn about, and to take action for, woods and trees, to help fight the climate and nature crises. We work with The Woodland Trust to deliver the programme.	Our biggest ever year for tree planting - 12,656 trees were requested by 64 groups based in universities, colleges and local communities. We supported 46 student-led groups in 2022-23.

PROJECT	DETAILS	2022-23 ACHIEVEMENTS
	Turning campuses into places
	hedgehogs can thrive by	We moved from a free to a
	awarding to universities, FE	paid-for delivery model for
Hedgehog Friendly	colleges and primary schools	universities and secured 12
Campus	who complete actions from our	sign ups showing the
	hedgehog-friendly toolkit. The	demand for work in this
	programme is funded by the	area.
	British Hedgehog Preservation
	Society
	Our flagship sustainability
	support package and awards
Green Impact	programme for SUs. Launching	42 students’ unions took part in
Students’Unions	each autumn, unions try to	2022-23, each undergoing an
	implement change throughout	audit led by the SOS-UK staff
	the academic year, submitting	team to achieve accreditation.
	work in late spring, receiving
	an audit in early summer, then
	awards are announced in July.

Education

PROJECT	DETAILS	2022-23 ACHIEVEMENTS
	Our annual campaign to put the UN Sustainable	Our biggest ever campaign,
SDG Teach-in	Development Goals(SDGs), and therefore sustainability, at the heart of all stages of education, and across all	with 1284 making a pledge to incorporated the SDGs in their teaching, reaching 121,000 students.
	disciplines.
	We’re supporting students	In the final year of the project,
	to engage with a research	we support project partners
RED WoLF	project tackling carbon emissions from housing in	with student engagement and consultation. We also ran
	North West Europe -	Carbon Literacy courses for
	providing action-based	students aspiring to work in
	learning opportunities on	energy management after
	the topic.	graduation.
	Our whole-institution	We updated our framework to
	supported change programme	ensure it stays up to date with
Responsible	and accreditation mark to	current thinking on
Futures	embed sustainability across all	employability, staff wellbeing
	aspects of student learning.	and co-creation of teaching and
		learning with students.
	Following our mock COP26 in	We supported 5 students from
	2020, our network connects	around the world to attend
	students from around the	COP27, advocating for youth
	world supporting them to	voice in global decision making
	continue campaigning on	spaces on climate change. We
Mock COP	climate education across local	also delivered an online Mock
	and global contexts.	Education Ministers Summit,
		bringing together 227 young
		people from 89 countries to
		create the first ever youth-led
		definition of quality climate
		education.

PROJECT	DETAILS	2022-23 ACHIEVEMENTS
	Our accreditation	We continued to support one
	framework is designed to	university to focus on
	foster productive, healthy	responsible alcohol
Alcohol Impact	and inclusive student	consumption, though most
	cultures surrounding	opt to consider both alcohol
	drinking.	and drugs through Drug and
		Alcohol Impact.
	Our student wellbeing	The two-year pilot of the
	programme embeds social	programme came to an end in
	norms of responsible	2022-23, and following
	drinking on our campuses,	publication of the results we
Drug and Alcohol Impact	and refocuses the conversation on drugs to be about reducing harm, and	saw positive demand for participation as the programme rolled out
	building healthier, safer,	nationally. Our Students
	more productive student	Drugs and Alcohol
	communities.	Conference sold out!
	Our support package for	We worked with 8 institutions
	mapping the UN Sustainable	and 130 students to map the
SDG and	Development Goals(SDGs) and	SDGs across the formal
sustainability curriculum mapping	Education for Sustainable Development(ESD) teaching and learning approaches	curriculum. We also developed a new mapping methodology with the
	across the formal curriculum	University of Liverpool
	in universities and colleges	Management School and
	through a student-led audit.	Liverpool Guild of Students
		that draws on direct student
		experience.
	This campaign, run by students	2022-23 saw huge progress on
	in secondary and tertiary	political engagement including
	education and hosted by SOS-	parliamentary receptions in
Teach the Future	UK, has three goals: that all	Scotland and Wales and
	students are taught about	Climate Education Bill
	climate change, that green	presented in parliament by
	skills are included in	Nadia Whittome MP.
	vocational courses and that	Tracked Changes launched
	educational buildings are	reviews of 11 primary subjects
	climate-friendly	across the whole national
		curriculum at key stages 1 and
		2.

	PROJECT DETAILS 2022-23 ACHIEVEMENTS	PROJECT DETAILS 2022-23 ACHIEVEMENTS
	Drink Rethink trains students as ambassadors to engage their peers to assesss their alcohol risk levels and provide advice based on the results, using the established Intervention and Brief Advice and AUDIT tools. Drink Rethink We engaged over 100 students who received advice on their alcohol risk levels through the 11 trained student ambassadors.
	Funded by the British Academy, we work with students studying social sciences, humanities and arts to work in groups to identify solutions to challenges facing people, the economy and the environment. A suite of training workshops and individual support guides them through the process of delivering their projects. SHAPE Sustainability Impact Projects We worked with 4 universities in 2022-23, supporting 16 student-led projects. The experience of taking part culminates in a conference allowing students to present their projects back to their institutions.
	From Summer 2023, we started supporting the Department for Education Youth Focal Points for the Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy. We’re working with two young people to promote youth voice and challenge within the Department for Education, and support them to attend major events including COP. Youth Focal Points

		Our three year programme of youth-led work in schools focused on delivering key parts of the DfE’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy, including Climate Action Plans, Wilding Schools, Teach the Teacher, and support the development of the Future Forum which brings together youth representatives from across the environmental charity sector. We started work in January 2023 after secured significant funding from #iwill, OVO and other match partners to deliver this three-year programme of work. We spent 2023 developing our delivery plans ready to launch for the 2023-24 academic year. Green Schools Revolution

Inclusion and climate justice

PROJECT	DETAILS	ACHIEVEMENTS
	Our prestigious leadership	We published our first year
	development programme	report and launched data
	for young people aged 16-24	collection for year two. In the
The RACE Report	usually underrepresented in	second year of the campaign,
	environmental campaigning,	142 charities and funders
	in association with Friends	submitted data, with 140
	of the Earth	submitting diversity data on the
		racial and ethnic identities of
		their employees.
	My World My Home is a	In 2022-23 we secured funding
	prestigious leadership	from The National Lottery
	development programme	Community Fund to develop
My World My Home	for young people aged 16-24 from backgrounds usually	the programme in Northern Ireland, and explore delivery
	underrepresented in	outside of college settings
	environmental campaigning,	working through youth work
	in association with Friends	centres instead.
	of the Earth and SOS-UK.
	Banks rely on universities and students for recruitment and reputation: we can use this to	This was the first full year of Breaking the Bank! We released research, made links with
Breaking the Bank	put the pressure on for our demand that they stop financing fossil fuels. We're building university campaigns across the country, each one	student groups, created campaign materials and road tested different campaign approaches.
	unique to the institution and
	group of students.

PROJECT	DETAILS	ACHIEVEMENTS
	We're calling on universities to	The campaign picked up a huge
	reform their investment	amount of momentum this
	practices to centre	year, for example we supported
Invest for Change	environmental and social justice solutions. We're	student campaigners at over 35 target universities, created a
	working with students to	gold standard guide for asset
	engage their universities on	owners as a means of engaging
	this, as well as working directly	with senior leaders and
	with universities to lead this	mobilised student support for
	shift.	shareholder resolutions at
		AGMs
	Green Influencers is helping	300 Green Influencers were
	young people create deep,	engaged across Southampton
	lasting and meaningful	and Norfolk, mostly from
	connections with the natural	disadvantaged backgrounds
	environment. By taking part	across 12 schools and
	in ambitious youth-led	community organisations. Each
Green Influencers	projects, young people learn	group of young people received
	and develop new skills that	training and developed an
	will improve their life	environmental project or
	chances, open progression	campaign, and funding to help
	routes and help inspire their	make their ideas a reality.
	local communities to take
	meaningful action too.

appendix 2 AUDITED ACCOUNTS 41

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

The trustees present their report with the financial statements of the charity for the year ended 30th September 2023.

The financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the accounting policies set out in the notes to the accounts and comply with the charity’s governing document, the Charities Act 2011 and the relevant version of the Statement of Recommended Practice applicable to charities preparing their accounts in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102).

REFERENCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS

Registered Charitable Incorporated Organisation numbe r: CE017928

Registered Charity number: 1184011

Principal office:

c/o NUS Services, Snape Road, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK10 2NZ

Trustees:

Zamzam Ibrahim (resigned 14 February 2023) Richard Dunne (resigned 21 November 2023) Ellen Fearon (resigned 19 June 2023) Larissa Kennedy Harriet Williams Hannah Thomas Serene Esuruoso Carole Parkes Dr Hazel Norman (appointed 21 November 2023) Scarlett Westbrook (appointed 11 April 2023) Emma de Saram (appointed 11 April 2023) Ludovico Caminati (appointed 11 April 2023) Chloe Ferguson (appointed 11 April 2023)

Statutory Auditors:

Harts Limited, Westminster House, 10 Westminster Rd, Cheshire, Macclesfield SK10 1BX

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

Governing document

The charity is controlled by it's governing document, a memorandum, and was registered with the Charity Commission on 20th June 2019 as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation, governed by the proper law of England and Wales.

Risk management

The trustees have a duty to identify and review the risks to which the charity is exposed and to ensure appropriate controls are in place to provide reasonable assurance against fraud and error.

Trustees report and annual accounts 2022-23

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES (continued) FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

STATEMENT OF TRUSTEES RESPONSIBILITIES

The Trustees are responsible for preparing the Report of the Trustees and the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).

The law applicable to charities in England and Wales requires the Trustees to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity and of the incoming resources and application of resources of the charity for the year. In preparing these financial statements, the Trustees are required to:

select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently;
observe the methods and principles in the Charities SORP;
make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent;
state whether applicable accounting standards have been followed, subject to any departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements; and
prepare the financial statements on a going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to presume that the charity will continue in business.

The Trustees are responsible for maintaining proper accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity and which enable them to ensure that the financial statements comply with the Charities Act 2011, the Charites (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 and the provisions of the constitution. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.

In so far as the Trustees, individually, are aware:

There is no relevant audit information of which the charity's auditors is unaware; and
The Trustees have taken all steps that ought to have been taken to make themselves aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the auditor is aware of that information.

AUDITORS

Harts Limited were appointed as auditors to the charity in the year.

…………………………………… Dr Hazel Norman Chair of Trustees Date: 26th July 2024

Trustees report and annual accounts 2022-23

INDEPENDENT AUDITOR'S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY

Opinion

We have audited the financial statements of Students Organising for Sustainability (the ‘Charitable Incorporated Organisation’') for the period ended 30 September 2023 which comprise the Statement of Financial Activities, the Balance Sheet, the Cash Flow Statement and notes to the financial statements, including a summary of significant accounting policies. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards, including Financial Reporting Standard 102 'The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland' (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice). In our opinion the financial statements:

give a true and fair view of the state of the Charitable Incorporated Organisation’s affairs as at 30 September 2023 and of its incoming resources and application of resources for the year then ended; and
have been properly prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice; and
have been properly prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011.

Basis for opinion

We have been appointed as auditors under section 144 of the Charities Act 2011 and report in accordance with regulations made under section 154 of that Act.

We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK) (ISAs (UK)) and applicable law. Our responsibilities under those standards are further described in the Auditors responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements section of our report. We are independent of the charity in accordance with the ethical requirements that are relevant to our audit of the financial statements in the UK, including the FRC's Ethical Standard, and we have fulfilled our other ethical responsibilities in accordance with these requirements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our opinion.

Conclusions relating to going concern

In auditing the financial statements, we have concluded that the trustee's use of the going concern basis of accounting in preparation of the financial statements is appropriate.

Based on the work we have performed, we have not identified any material uncertainties relating to events or conditions that, individually or collectively, may cast significant doubt on the charity's ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least twelve months from when the financial statements are authorised for issue.

Our responsibilities and the responsibilities of the trustees with respect to going concern are described in the relevant sections of this report.

Other information

The other information comprises the information included in the Report of the Trustees other than the financial statements and our auditor's report thereon. The trustees are responsible for the other information contained within the Report of the Trustees. Our opinion on the financial statements does not cover the other information and, we do not express any form of assurance conclusion thereon.

Our responsibility is to read the other information and, in doing so, consider whether the other information is materially inconsistent with the financial statements or our knowledge obtained in the course of the audit or otherwise appears to be materially misstated. If we identify such material inconsistencies or apparent material misstatements, we are required to determine whether this gives rise to a material misstatement in the financial statements themselves. If, based on the work we have performed, we conclude that there is a material misstatement of this other information, we are required to report that fact.

We have nothing to report in this regard.

Matters on which we are required to report by exception

We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters in relation to which the Charities Act 2011 require us to report to you if, in our opinion:

the information given in the financial statements is inconsistent in any material respect with the Report of the Trustees; or
sufficient accounting records have not been kept; or
the financial statements are not in agreement with the accounting records and returns; or
we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit.

Trustees report and annual accounts 2022-23

INDEPENDENT AUDITOR'S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY (continued)

Responsibilities of trustees

As explained more fully in the Statement of Trustees Responsibilities, set out on page 43, the trustees are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view, and for such internal control as the trustees determine is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

In preparing the financial statements, the trustees are responsible for assessing the charity's ability to continue as a going concern, disclosing, as applicable, matters related to going concern and using the going concern basis of accounting unless the trustees either intend to liquidate the charity or to cease operations, or have no realistic alternative but to do so.

Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

Our objectives are to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements as a whole are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, and to issue an auditor' report that includes our opinion. Reasonable assurance is a high level of assurance, but is not a guarantee that an audit conducted in accordance with ISAs (UK) will always detect a material misstatement when it exists. Misstatements can arise from fraud or error and are considered material if, individually or in the aggregate, they could reasonably be expected to influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of these financial statements.

The extent to which the audit was considered capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud

Irregularities are instances of non-compliance with laws and regulations. The objectives of our audit are to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence regarding compliance with laws and regulations that have a direct effect on the determination of material amounts and disclosures in the financial statements, to perform audit procedures to help identify instances of non-compliance with other laws and regulations that may have a material effect on the financial statements, and to respond appropriately to identified or suspected non-compliance with laws and regulations identified during the audit.

In relation to fraud, the objectives of our audit are to identify and assess the risk of material misstatement of the financial statements due to fraud, to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence regarding the assessed risks of material misstatement due to fraud through designing and implementing appropriate responses and to respond appropriately to fraud or suspected fraud identified during the audit.

However, it is the primary responsibility of management, with the oversight of those charged with governance, to ensure that the entity's operations are conducted in accordance with the provisions of laws and regulations and for the prevention and detection of fraud.

In identifying and assessing risks of material misstatement in respect of irregularities, including fraud, the audit engagement team:

obtained an understanding of the nature of the sector, including the legal and regulatory framework, that the charity operate in and how the charity is complying with the legal and regulatory framework;
inquired of management, and those charged with governance, about their own identification and assessment of the risks of irregularities, including any known actual, suspected or alleged instances of fraud;
discussed matters about non-compliance with laws and regulations and how fraud might occur including assessment of how and where the financial statements may be susceptible to fraud.

As a result of these procedures we consider the most significant laws and regulations that have a direct impact on the financial statements are FRS 102, Charities SORP (FRS 102), Charities Act 2011 and the charity's governing document. We performed audit procedures to detect non-compliances which may have a material impact on the financial statements which included reviewing the financial statements including the Report of the Trustees and remaining alert to new or unusual transactions which may not be in accordance with the governing documents.

The audit engagement team identified the risk of management override of controls as the area where the financial statements were most susceptible to material misstatement due to fraud. Audit procedures performed included but were not limited to testing manual journal entries and other adjustments, evaluating the business rationale in relation to significant, unusual transactions and transactions entered into outside the normal course of business, challenging judgments and estimates.

A further description of our responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements is located on the Financial Reporting Council's website at www.frc.org.uk/auditorsresponsibilities. This description forms part of our auditor's report.

Trustees report and annual accounts 2022-23

INDEPENDENT AUDITOR'S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY (continued)

Use of our report

This report is made solely to the charity’s trustees, as a body, in accordance with the Charities Act . Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the charity’s trustees those matters we are required to state to them in an auditors' report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the charity and the charity’s trustees as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.

Melissa Bowers FCCA (Senior Statutory Auditor) for and on behalf of Harts Limited Statutory Auditors Westminster House, 10 Westminster Rd, Cheshire, Macclesfield SK10 1BX Date:

Trustees report and annual accounts 2022-23

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

Unrestricted funds £ 170,034 689,008 142,675 991	Restricted funds £ 1,713,509 - -	Total funds 2023 £ 1,883,543 689,008 142,675 991	Total funds 2022 £ 971,374 641,720 175,035 -
1,002,708 930,246 53,415 250	1,713,509 - 1,099,402 7,125	2,716,217 930,246 1,152,817 7,375	1,788,129 637,439 778,153 2,468
983,911	1,106,527	2,090,438	1,418,060
18,797 (19,056)	606,982 19,056	625,779 -	370,069 -
(259)	626,038	625,779	370,069
242,067 (259)	684,876 626,038	926,943 625,779	556,875 370,069
241,808	1,310,914	1,552,722	926,943

The Statement of Financial Activities includes all gains and losses recognised in the year. All income and expenditure derive from continuing activities.

The notes on pages 50 to 58 form part of these financial statements.

Trustees report and annual accounts 2022-23

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY BALANCE SHEET AS AT 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

Unrestricted funds £ 42,250 24,642	Restricted funds £ - -	Total funds 2023 £ 42,250 24,642	Total funds 2022 £ - 24,054
66,892 250,402 631,158	- 899,127 460,596	66,892 1,149,529 1,091,754	24,054 324,270 1,045,784
881,560 (706,644)	1,359,723 (48,809)	2,241,283 (755,453)	1,370,054 (467,164)
174,916	1,310,914	1,485,830	902,890
241,808	1,310,914	1,552,722	926,944
		241,808 1,310,914	242,068 684,876
		1,552,722	926,944

The financial statements were approved and authorised for issue by the Trustees and signed on their behalf by:

………………………………………………………………..

Dr Hazel Norman

Date: 26th July 2024

The notes on pages 50 to 58 form part of these financial statements.

Trustees report and annual accounts 2022-23

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

Notes (a) (b) (b) As at 30th September 2022 1,045,784	2023 £ 97,134 (51,164)	2022 £ 354,048 (29,645)
	(51,164)	(29,645)
	45,970 1,045,784	324,403 721,381
	1,091,754	1,045,784
	2023 £ 625,779 8,325	2022 £ 370,069 6,041
	634,104 (825,259) 288,289	376,110 (142,251) 120,189
	97,134	354,048
	Cash flow 45,970	As at 30th September 2023 1,091,754
1,045,784	45,970	1,091,754

Trustees report and annual accounts 2022-23

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

1 General information

The Charity is a public benefit entity and a Charitable Incorporated Organisation ("CIO") and is registered with the Charity Charities Commission (Charity Registered Number 1184011) in England and Wales.

In the event of the Charity being wound up, each Member of the Charity is liable to contribute to the assets of the Charity such amount (but not more than £1) as may be required for the payment of debts and liabilities of the Charity contracted before that person ceases to be a Member, for payment of costs, charges and expenses of winding up, and for adjustment of the rights of the continuing Members among themselves.

The address of the registered office is c/o NUS Services, Snape Road, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK10 2NZ. The nature of the Charity’s operations and principal activities are detailed in the Trustees Report.

2 Accounting policies

2.1 Basis of preparation of financial statements

The financial statements have been prepared to give a “true and fair” view and have departed from the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 only to the extent required to provide a “true and fair” view. This departure has involved following Accounting and Reporting by Charities preparing their financial statements in accordance with the Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland (FRS 102), effective on 1 January 2019, rather than the Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice, effective from 1 April 2005, which has since been withdrawn.

Students Organising for Sustainability meets the definition of a public benefit entity under FRS102. Assets and liabilities are initially recognised at historical cost or transaction value unless otherwise stated in the relevant accounting policy.

The financial statements are presented in sterling which is the functional currency of the Charity and rounded to the nearest pound.

2.2 Going concern

The financial statements have been prepared on a going concern basis as the Trustees believe that no material uncertainties exist. The Trustees have considered the level of funds held and the expected level of income and expenditure for at least 12 months from authorising these financial statements. The budgeted income and expenditure is sufficient with the level of reserves for the Charity to be able to continue as a going concern.

2.3 Income

All income is recognised once the Charity has entitlement to the income, it is probable that the income will be received and the amount of income receivable can be measured reliably.

Donations

Donations are recognised when the Charity has been notified in writing of both the amount and settlement date or on a receipts basis if earlier. In the event that a donation is subject to conditions that require a level of performance before the Charity is entitled to the funds, the income is deferred and not recognised until either those conditions are fully met, or the fulfilment of those conditions is wholly within the control of the Charity and it is probable that those conditions will be fulfilled in the reporting period.

Trustees report and annual accounts 2022-23

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

Grants

Grants are included in the Statement of Financial Activities on a receivable basis. The balance of income for a specific purposes but not expended during the period is shown in the relevant funds on the Balance Sheet. Where income is received in advance of entitlement of receipt, it's recognition is deferred and included in creditors as deferred income. Where entitlement occurs before income is received, the income is accrued.

Gift of professional services and facilities

If material on receipt, donated professional services and facilities are recognised on the basis of the value of the gift to the Charity which is the amount it would have been willing to pay to obtain services or facilities of equivalent economic benefit on the open market; a corresponding amount is then recognised in expenditure in the period of receipt.

Services

Income from services rendered comprises the fair value of the consideration received or receivable for the sale of goods and provision of services in the ordinary course of the Charity’s activities. Services income is shown net of sales/value added tax, returns, rebates and discounts.

2.4 Expenditure

All expenditure is accounted for on an accruals basis. Expenditure is recognised once there is a legal or constructive obligation to transfer economic benefit to a third party, it is probable that a transfer of economic benefits will be required in settlement and the amount of the obligation can be measured reliably. Expenditure is classified by activity. The costs of each activity are made up of the total of direct costs and shared costs, including support costs involved in undertaking each activity. Direct costs attributable to a single activity are allocated directly to that activity. Shared costs which contribute to more than one activity and support costs which are not attributable to a single activity are apportioned between those activities on a basis consistent with the use of resources. Central staff costs are allocated on the basis of time spent, and depreciation charges allocated on the portion of the asset’s use.

Expenditure on charitable activities is incurred on directly undertaking the activities which further the Charity's objectives, as well as any associated support costs.

Expenditure relating to the provision of trading services is exclusive of VAT. All other expenditure is inclusive of irrecoverable VAT.

2.5 Tangible/ Intangible fixed assets

Fixed assets (tangible and intangible) costing £250 or more are capitalised and recognised when the future economic benefits are probable and the cost or value of the asset can be measured reliably. Tangible fixed assets are stated at cost less accumulated depreciation. Depreciation is provided at rates calculated to write off the cost less residual value of each asset over its expected useful life, as follows:

Computer equipment 20% straight line method 10% amortisation

2.6 Investment assets

Fixed asset investments are initially recognised at their transaction cost and are subsequently measured at fair value at each reporting date, with changes in fair value recognised in the statement of financial activities. Unlisted investments are held at cost less impairment.

2.7 Financial instruments

The Charity does not have a material holding in complex financial instruments. The Charity only holds basic Financial Instruments. The financial assets and financial liabilities of the Charity are as follows:

Debtors - trade and other debtors (including accrued income) are basic financial instruments and are debt instruments measured at amortised cost. Prepayments are not financial instruments.

Cash at bank - is classified as a basic financial instrument and is measured at face value.

Liabilities - trade creditors, accruals and other creditors will be classified as financial instruments, and are measured at amortised cost. Taxation and social security are not included in the Financial instruments disclosure. Deferred income is not deemed to be a financial liability, as in the cash settlement has already taken place and there is simply an obligation to deliver charitable services rather than cash or another financial instrument.

Trustees report and annual accounts 2022-23

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

2.8 Debtors

Trade and other debtors are recognised at the settlement amount after any trade discount offered. Prepayments are valued at the amount prepaid net of any trade discounts due.

2.9 Cash at bank and in hand

Cash at bank and in hand includes cash and short-term highly liquid investments with a short maturity of three months or less from the date of acquisition or opening of the deposit or similar account.

2.10 Liabilities and provisions

Liabilities are recognised when there is an obligation at the Balance Sheet date as a result of a past event, it is probable that a transfer of economic benefit will be required in settlement, and the amount of the settlement can be estimated reliably.

Liabilities are recognised at the amount that the Charity anticipates it will pay to settle the debt or the amount it has received as advanced payments for the goods or services it must provide.

Provisions are measured at the best estimate of the amounts required to settle the obligation. Where the effect of the time value of money is material, the provision is based on the present value of those amounts, discounted at the pre-tax discount rate that reflects the risks specific to the liability. The unwinding of the discount is recognised in the Statement of Financial Activities as a finance cost.

2.11 Fund accounting

General funds are unrestricted funds which are available for use at the discretion of the Trustees in furtherance of the general objectives of the Charity and which have not been designated for other purposes.

Restricted funds are funds which are to be used in accordance with specific restrictions imposed by donors or which have been raised by the Charity for particular purposes. The costs of raising and administering such funds are charged against the specific fund. The aim and use of each restricted fund is set out in the notes to the financial statements.

2.12 Critical accounting estimates and areas of judgment

The following judgements (apart from those involving estimates) have been made in the process of applying the above accounting policies that have had the most significant effect on the amounts recognised in the financial statements:

Depreciation rates for tangible assets
Support cost allocation

2.13 Pension costs and other post-retirement benefits

The Charity operates a defined contribution pension scheme. Contributions payable to the Charity's pension scheme are charged to the Statement of Financial Activities in the period to which they relate.

2.14 Taxation

The charity carries on activities which are exempt from corporation tax and income tax. Irrecoverable Value Added Tax is included with the expenditure to which it relates.

3 Income from donations

*For the year ended 30th September 2023* Donations and gifts Grants	Unrestricted funds £ 149,734 20,300	Restricted funds £ 19,240 1,694,269	Total funds £ 168,974 1,714,569
	170,034	1,713,509	1,883,543

Trustees report and annual accounts 2022-23

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

Unrestricted funds £ 66,878 51,226	Restricted funds £ 16,529 836,741	Total funds £ 83,407 887,967
118,104	853,270	971,374
Unrestricted funds £ 689,008 -	Restricted funds £ - -	Total funds £ 689,008 -
689,008	-	689,008
639,450 2,270	- -	639,450 2,270
641,720	-	641,720
Unrestricted funds £ 142,675	Restricted funds £ -	Total funds £ 142,675
142,675	-	142,675
168,620	6,415	175,035
168,620	6,415	175,035
Unrestricted funds £ 991	Restricted funds £ -	Total funds £ 991
991	-	991
-	-	-
-	-	-

4 Income from charitable activities

5 Other trading activities

6 Investment income

Trustees report and annual accounts 2022-23

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

6 Expenditure on charitable activities

Expenditure on charitable activities
*For the year ended 30th September 2023* Cost of programme delivery Programme costs Venue costs Wages and salaries Social security costs Pension costs Support costs note 7 Advancement of sustainability Project costs Venue costs Wages and salaries Social security costs Pension costs Support costs note 7 *For the year ended 30th September 2022* Cost of programme delivery Programme costs Venue costs Wages and salaries Social security costs Pension costs Support costs note 7 Advancement of sustainability projects Direct project costs Venue costs Wages and salaries Social security costs Pension costs Support costs note 7	Unrestricted funds £ 49,244 20,638 563,694 48,937 31,286 216,447	Restricted funds £ - - - - - -	Total funds £ 49,244 20,638 563,694 48,937 31,286 216,447
	930,246 - - - - - 53,415	- 51,001 12,893 655,622 94,092 58,580 227,214	930,246 51,001 12,893 655,622 94,092 58,580 280,629
	53,415	1,099,402	1,152,817
	983,661	1,099,402	2,083,063
	26,626 - 348,884 34,685 19,583 207,661	- - - - - -	26,626 - 348,884 34,685 19,583 207,661
	637,439 61,936 2,240 127,904 12,716 7,179 38,220	- 43,577 2,027 219,175 16,828 9,013 237,338	637,439 105,513 4,267 347,079 29,544 16,192 275,558
	250,195	527,958	778,153
	887,634	527,958	1,415,592

Trustees report and annual accounts 2022-23

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

7 Support costs

Support costs
Unrestricted funds Restricted funds £ £ Management (see note 8 'Support staff costs') 45,164 77,180 Finance costs 1,051 143 Information technology costs 46,821 7,378 Insurance 11,852 - Accounting and legal costs 13,808 3,280 Auditors remuneration (Governance costs) 5,400 - Office costs 32,588 8,441 Human resources 32,435 30 Other costs 80,743 130,762 224,698 150,034 269,862 227,214 Programme costs 216,447 - Project costs 53,415 227,214 269,862 227,214 Staff costs Unrestricted funds Restricted funds £ £ Support staff costs Wages 32,278 55,160 Social security costs 3,928 6,712 Pension costs 8,958 15,308 45,164 77,180 Total staff costs (including support staff) Wages Social security costs Pension costs The average number of employees, including management, during the period was: The number of employees received emoluments in excess of £60,000 was as follows: Salary from £60,000 to £69,999	Unrestricted funds £ 45,164	Restricted funds £ 77,180	2023 £ 122,344	2022 £ 277,440
	1,051 46,821 11,852 13,808 5,400 32,588 32,435 80,743	143 7,378 - 3,280 - 8,441 30 130,762	1,194 54,199 11,852 17,088 5,400 41,029 32,465 211,505	657 25,683 7,157 25,307 4,000 28,842 11,870 102,263
	224,698	150,034	374,732	205,779
	269,862	227,214	497,076	483,219
	216,447 53,415	- 227,214	216,447 280,629	207,661 275,558
	269,862	227,214	497,076	483,219
	Unrestricted funds £ 32,278 3,928 8,958	Restricted funds £ 55,160 6,712 15,308	2023 £ 87,438 10,640 24,266	2022 £ 238,478 22,757 16,205
	45,164	77,180	122,344	277,440
			1,306,754 153,669 114,132	934,441 86,986 51,980
			1,574,555	1,073,407
			52	39
			2023 0	2022 1

8 Staff costs

The charity averaged 38 full time earnings (FTE) staff over the year. Excluding student staff, the lowest paid basic salary was £25,522, and the highest paid basic salary was £59,274. The median basic salary was £33,762. The gender pay gap was 19.8% and the ethnicity pay gap was 15.5%. Pay gaps are based on mean rather than median values.

Trustees report and annual accounts 2022-23

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

9 Trustees' and key management remuneration and benefits

Trustees

There were no trustees' remuneration or other benefits for the period ended 30 September 2023 (2022: £nil) There were no trustees' expenses paid for the period ended 30 September 2023 (2022: £nil).

Key management

Total key management remuneration and benefits for the period ended 30th September 2023 was £357,311 (2022: £289,033)

10 Intangible fixed assets

Cost As at 30th September 2022 Additions As at 30th September 2023 Amortisation As at 30th September 2022 Amortisation for the year As at 30th September 2023 Net Book Value As at 30th September 2022 As at 30th September 2023 11 Tangible fixed assets Cost As at 30th September 2022 Additions As at 30th September 2023 Depreciation As at 30th September 2022 Charge for the year As at 30th September 2023 Net Book Value As at 30th September 2022 As at 30th September 2023	Software £ - 45,000
	45,000 - 2,750
	2,750 - 42,250
	Computer equipment £ 30,207 6,163
	36,370 6,153 5,575
	11,728 24,054 24,642

Trustees report and annual accounts 2022-23

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

12 Debtors

year As at 30th September 2022 £ 242,067 684,876	Incoming resources £ 1,002,708 1,713,509	Resources expended £ (983,911) (1,106,528)	2023 £ 248,158 519 900,852	2022 £ 170,771 5,317 148,182
			1,149,529	324,270
			2023 £ 27,666 125,264 9,246 593,277	2022 £ 86,805 52,789 12,724 314,846
			755,453	467,164
			Transfers £ (19,056) 19,056	As at 30th September 2023 £ 241,808 1,310,913
926,943	2,716,217	(2,090,439)	-	1,552,721

13 Creditors amounts falling due within one year

14 Movement in funds

15 Movement in restricted funds

Movements for 2023

Movements for 2023
Mock COP and 1.5 Degrees Students for Trees Banking with Who Teach the Future Red WOLF Student Eats Invest for Change My World My Home Farming for Carbon and Nature Green Erasmus Green Mentors Race for Nature KM Fund The RACE Report Farming the Future Friends Provident Breaking the Bank Hedgehog Friendly Campus Homes Fit for Study NEIRF Carried forward	As at 30th September 2022 £ 111,276 - 32,332 - - 9,526 17,532 9,582 114,934 28,523 9,578 6,075 20,000 57,975 54,599 19,976 90,559 72,162 30,247 -	Incoming resources £ - - - 35,500 28,530 - - - 19,139 8,161 18,567 11,855 7,000 12,000 35,704 156,961 68,988 75,092 73,289 86,427	Resources expended £ (111,276) (15,991) - (35,500) (29,336) (9,526) - - (80,443) (36,324) (28,145) (9,018) (28,829) (99,289) (34,553) (58,053) (52,324) (77,592) (92,723) (86,427)	Transfers £ - 15,991 (32,332) - 806 - (17,532) - - - - - 1,829 - 17,532 32,332 - - -	As at 30th September 2023 £ - - - - - - - 9,582 53,630 360 - 8,912 - (29,314) 55,750 136,416 139,555 69,662 10,813 -
	684,876	637,213	(885,349)	18,626	455,366

Trustees report and annual accounts 2022-23

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

Brought forward Teach the Teacher I Will Fund New to Nature Green Schools Revolution Total	684,876	637,213	(885,349)	18,626	455,366
	- - - -	348,850 569,505 5,441 152,500	(117,418) (78,284) (5,871) (19,606)	- - 430 -	231,432 491,221 - 132,894
	684,876	1,713,509	(1,106,528)	19,056	1,310,913

The Trustees report provides further explanation of the activities of these restricted funds.

Movements for 2022

Mock COP and 1.5 Degrees Students for Trees Banking with Who Teach the Future Red WOLF Student Eats Invest for Change My World My Home Farming for Carbon and Nature Green Erasmus Green Mentors Race for Nature KM Fund The RACE Report Farming the Future Friends Provident Breaking the Bank Hedgehog Friendly Campus Homes Fit for Study Total	As at 30th September 2020 126,496 - 32,332 29,003 5,016 9,526 16,835 12,898 55,056 14,926 20,337 18,913 - - - - - - -	Incoming resources £ 70,591 1,150 - 51,959 9,015 - 697 15,000 132,160 15,158 32,374 81,828 20,000 59,225 55,015 70,048 116,335 74,330 54,800	Resources expended £ (85,811) (6,257) - (87,965) (15,892) - - (18,316) (72,282) (1,561) (43,133) (94,666) - (1,250) (416) (50,072) (25,776) (2,168) (24,553)	Transfers £ 5,107 - 7,003 1,861	As at 30th September 2022 £ 111,276 - 32,332 - - 9,526 17,532 9,582 114,934 28,523 9,578 6,075 20,000 57,975 54,599 19,976 90,559 72,162 30,247
	341,338	859,685	(530,118)	13,971	684,876

16 Related party transactions

There were no related party transactions during the year.

17 Volunteers

The charity utilises the services of volunteers whom are an integral part of the operation of the charity. The value in-kind of their free labour cannot be accurately calculated.

Trustees report and annual accounts 2022-23

2023-09-30-accounts

table of CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 1

About this report

The charitable objective of SOS-UK is...

Our 2022-23

Larissa Kennedy SOS-UK President

o u r 2 STORY

Our mission

Our values

The organisational values we work by are:

Our background

CHANGE needs to happen now

our work 4 AND IMPACT

We seek out and support students with good ideas, helping them develop their plans and supporting them to access funding so they can see their ideas turn into a reality - and achieve

Through working towards our goals, in 2022-23 we...

ENGAGEMENT

“HFCCTP provides an opportunity for students to learn more about the agrifood system. Through field visits and interactive activities, I have gained new knowledge of sustainable agriculture outside the classroom.” Ruihan, University of Oxford

EDUCATION

Repurposing the education system around the climate emergency and ecological crisis through the Mock Education Ministers Summit

Repurposing the education system around the climate emergency and ecological crisis through SDG Curriculum Mapping

“I learned that teaching has a larger purpose than just exams and assignments.”

“I feel a sense of success knowing that my ideas and experiences will make a difference.”

“I think through doing the project, my knowledge of the subjects improved significantly.”

Our long-term programmatic work continued to grow and develop through

We launched the Green Schools Revolution project – our first major programme delivered in schools.

Things we learnt about our education work this year include :

INCLUSION AND CLIMATE JUSTICE

Making sustainability more inclusive, so it is for everyone through Invest for Change

Our 2022-23 inclusion and climate justice highlights include:

Things we learnt about our inclusion and climate justice work this year include:

We’re excited as our Green Schools Revolution heads into its first full academic year of

our GOVERNANCE & 7 MANAGEMENT

In 2023, SOS-UK Board of trustees established three sub-committees to provide action-

SOS-UK has separate governance and is financially independent from its founding

our DETAILS 8 Students Organising for Sustainability is a Charitable Incorporate Organisation registered by the Charity Commission in England and Wales.

T H A N K Y O U for your continued support for O U R W O R K

appendix 1 OUR WORK IN DETAIL

Engagement

Education

Inclusion and climate justice

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

REFERENCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE DETAILS

Registered Charitable Incorporated Organisation numbe r: CE017928

Registered Charity number: 1184011

Principal office:

Trustees:

Statutory Auditors:

STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT

Governing document

Risk management

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES (continued) FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

STATEMENT OF TRUSTEES RESPONSIBILITIES

AUDITORS

INDEPENDENT AUDITOR'S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY

Opinion

Basis for opinion

Conclusions relating to going concern

Other information

Matters on which we are required to report by exception

INDEPENDENT AUDITOR'S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY (continued)

Responsibilities of trustees

Auditor’s responsibilities for the audit of the financial statements

The extent to which the audit was considered capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud

INDEPENDENT AUDITOR'S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES OF STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY (continued)

Use of our report

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY BALANCE SHEET AS AT 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

1 General information

2 Accounting policies

2.1 Basis of preparation of financial statements

2.2 Going concern

2.3 Income

Donations

STUDENTS ORGANISING FOR SUSTAINABILITY NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023

Grants

Gift of professional services and facilities