Remember remember the 5th of November: University of Greenwich Sustainability Awards 2013!

Alex Giles gives us her highlights from her first University of Greenwich Sustainability Awards.

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Although I have only been with the University of Greenwich for 3 months, when it came to hosting the Sustainability Awards 2013 I could really appreciate the cross-departmental buy-in and support. Everyone in the room had contributed or been involved with Sustainability in one way or another, and there were many others dotted around the University who could not make it on the day.

We kicked off the day by updating the attendees on sustainability at the University of Greenwich, including our carbon management plan, water, waste and reuse, biodiversity, food, travel, curriculum, student engagement and Green Impact.  We also reflected on our current accreditation of ISO14001, the business school’s perusal of ISO2012(1) sustainable events accreditation and our Fairtrade University status. We proudly spoke of our sustainability achievements of coming 6th place in the People & Planet Green League 2013 and that we’ve been shortlisted for the Times Higher Education Award for Outstanding Contribution to Sustainable Development. Quite a list I’m sure you’ll agree. It is a KPI of the University to stay in the top 10 in the Green League, but we’ll have to prioritise where to focus our efforts. Our top 3 priorities looking forward will be scope 3 carbon emissions, sustainable procurement and ethical finance.

hub bannerWe also introduced our new Sustainability Hub, a partnership between the Student’s Union and the University that will engage students in sustainability and provide outreach to the local community.  The Hub will employ four students this year and eight students next year to act as Green Ambassadors. These Ambassadors will work with local businesses, colleges and schools to deliver sustainability training and, for those lucky shops and colleges, the Green Impact behaviour change project. Amongst other projects, the hub will also expand food growing at Greenwich, with a vision to open up a student- led farmers market.

The awards! C. Patrick Hollins

The awards! C. Patrick Hollins

For our Green Impact Awards, we gave out 6 ‘Working towards Bronze’ awards, 7 Bronze Awards, 8 Silver Awards and an outstanding 5 Gold Awards! This year we are introducing the ‘Green Impact Excellence’ Award, which will give the opportunity for Gold-winning departments to create and manage a sustainability project within their department. These teams have demonstrated that sustainable behaviours are embedded in their department through achieving their Gold Awards; their excellence project will allow them to explore how to enrich sustainability in their department, whether that is through the curriculum or communication. We already have a couple of interested teams exploring and planning potential projects, so watch this space for more updates of how they’re getting on.

In addition to our Green Impact Awards, we gave out 9 Special Awards to individuals or departments for their continued and dedicated contribution to sustainability in their department. These included:

–          Be the Change Award – Paul Harvey from Sodexo

–          Carbon Reduction Award – Jon Hudson from the Building Services Team

–          Sustainability in the Curriculum Award – Charlotte Jeavons from Public Health

–          Environmental Hero Award – The volunteers of the Edible Garden

–          Golden Pickaxe Award – Michael Unsworth, Head of Grounds

–          Green Impact Golden Labs Criteria Award – The Natural Resources Institute

–          Student Participation and Employability Award – The Business School

–          Positive Deviant Award – Caroline Troy from the Natural Resources Institute

–          Student Sustainability Champion Award – Lauren Newberry

Some of our Special Award Winners. C. Patrick Hollins

Some of our Special Award Winners. C. Patrick Hollins

For more information about the awards please contact the Sustainability Team sustainability@gre.ac.uk