After four and a half years, Emily Mason is leaving the Sustainability Department at the University of Greenwich. We managed to steal her away from her busy timetable for a few minutes to have a quick catch up and ask a few questions…
So Emily, what would you say has been your highlight whilst working at the University of Greenwich?
I’d say when we won the Times Higher Education Award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Sustainable Development’ in 2013. We were surprised we were even shortlisted and were just happy to be there at the event. We never thought we would win it so that was definitely a massive highlight. It was lovely to meet with other Universities and have people recognizing the work we have done.
What is the most important thing that you will take away with you?
All the learning I’ve done from everybody I’ve worked with. I’ve worked in sustainability for years but at the University of Greenwich I’ve absorbed so much information from everybody who has worked here.
What do you think the future holds for sustainability at the University?
I think that as long as we have people like the people working in the Sustainability Department, our Sustainability Champions and our interns, then it will be in safe hands. All these people bring the creativity, guts and determination to do the job.
What would you like to do next with your career?
My mum would love to know this as well! I’d like to learn how to sew better. Really I want to do something more proactive about the migrant crisis –it’s something I feel really strongly about. I’m currently looking into fostering a lone child migrant.
What would your advice be for anyone looking to enter a career in sustainability?
From me, it would be to look after yourself. A job in sustainability can be so intrinsically linked to your values that it’s easy to want to give everything of yourself. It can drain a lot from you. I’d say make sure you take time for yourself and practice self-care.
And finally… what pearls of wisdom do you have for the world?
Don’t forget how intrinsically linked human beings are to the environment. I think as soon as we forget that, we are in big trouble. We need to get children connected with the natural environment because if they don’t know what’s there, then they won’t know what they’re losing.
Also, find things to laugh at. Never go a day without laughing.
I love everything to do with beauty. Only several years ago, I had a handful of not-so-good products. It was only when I got my first job that I started to invest in more, better quality makeup.
Recently, I have become more conscious about them though. What ingredients are used to make them? Where are they sourced from? Have they been tested on animals?
As a consumer, I have the power and responsibility to spend my money on whatever I want. So why should I be paying companies that are hurting fluffy, little bunnies? The problem is a lot of us just don’t think too much about what we’re putting into our shopping baskets.
I believe that making the first step towards buying ethical or Fairtrade items can be tricky. Where do you start? Well, if we all took some time to read product labels and do some research on the brands that we love, we can learn more about them.
Here’s what I’ve come across in my search for ethical/Fairtrade beauty:
Brands that are cruelty free usually show this on their packaging with an image of a bunny or explicitly say so.
Brands that are Fairtrade have the logo on their packaging.
A lot of the time if you’re unsure about the details, you can easily find your answers online.
Brands that I’ve found:
Lush: “Lush consistently works hard to source materials and develop relationships with producers that are as direct and transparent as possible […] Lush uses a variety of ingredients, some of which are not able to be certified Fairtrade.” They also fight against animal testing, hand-make their products and are suitable for vegetarians. (http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/en/buying-fairtrade/beauty-products/lush-cosmetics)
The Body Shop: is leading the way to all things Fairtrade and ethical, as well as running other important campaigns. Their website is jam packed with information with what they are actively doing to help the world. (http://www.thebodyshop.co.uk/values/index.aspx)
(by Superdrug): “It’s our vision to be part of what makes you and your life beautiful.” B. is both cruelty free and vegan friendly – the best of both worlds! As well as carrying makeup and skincare items, they also have a range of products for men. (http://www.superdrug.com/brandshop/B)
Sometimes when we think about making the transition to buying ethical/Fairtrade items, we often think about the higher price tag that is attached to them. But, what you should consider is the fact that you’re investing in something positive and supporting these companies.
It has been rewarding to learn so much about ethical/Fairtrade online, and it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. There are countless videos on Youtube that talk about it.
When it comes down to the basics, we want to be purchasing from companies that are simply fair. If we all take small step towards investing in better products, we can all live in a better world and know that we are contributing to the greater good.
Emily Mason, Sustainability Projects Officer here at the Sustainable Development Unit, gives us a run down of a typical week in the role.
Monday
I always try and make sure that I start the week at Avery Hill and at my desk. This is my time to catch up on emails and plan out the week ahead. This morning I was reviewing a draft project plan from one of the University’s Sustainability Champions which sets outs what they want to achieve in this years Green Impact program.
Following this I held a meeting with our three Graduate placements Ramone, Jamal and Ryan as we are planning some events and communications for the first every Sustainable Food Fortnight that we are holding at the University in tandem with Fairtrade Fortnight.
Tuesday
The highlight of my Tuesday was meeting with two students from Public Health and Health and Wellbeing, Louise and Denise, who will be undertaking a 40 hour placement with the Sustainable Development Unit. The objectives for the placement are to equip students with some of the soft skills they will needs for employment as well as building up their understanding of sustainability. The outcome of this will be an open forum for students to discuss some of the areas where public health and sustainability overlap.
Wednesday
Wednesday is garden day and although the weather was cold and wet the polytunnel at the garden gives us a perfect base of operations for some planning. All the gardening volunteers get to choose what we plant so now is the perfect time to get the seed order in for anything new we want to plant.
Students from the School of Education getting stuck in at the Edible Garden.
This year we will be trying our hand at some new crops including Melons and Sweet Potatoes. We are also placing our order for some more fruit trees and bushes for the Forest Garden including some Raspberries and Greengages.
Thursday
I spent all of Thursday carrying out internal audits of the catering and cleaning operations at the Medway campus. The internal audits are something that take place across all of Facilities Management’s operations in order to check and improve upon our systems. This is to ensure we are minimising risk to the environment and are able to demonstrate good practice. Our Sustainability Management System which we operated is certified under the British Standard ISO14001 and this March we are up for re-certification.
Friday
A busy day of meetings! First up was the Biodiversity Steering Group where the Head of Grounds and myself presented back to the group on two visits we went on to Canterbury Christ Church University and Kingston University to see how they manage their grounds.
This was followed by the Vice Chancellor’s address where staff got to hear updates about future changes and how we were doing against the University’ strategic plan. Pleased to see the award for our Biodiversity Management was mentioned!
Last meeting of the day was the Sustainable Food and Fairtrade Steering Group which oversees the implementation of the Sustainable Food and Fairtrade policy by all the catering outlets. There are some exciting things coming as part of Sustainable Food fortnight and we shall be sharing more about that over the next few weeks.
Saturday
Now I am not advocating working at the weekend but there were a few interesting things I did on Saturday that overlap with my job. I am lucky to be in a position though where my interests overlap with my work!
I spent an hour in the sunshine with a thermos at the Avery Hill Edible Garden watching and counting birds for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. I have taken part every year since working for them as I know how much the data helps us understand what is happening to our birds. Without a garden of my own the Edible Garden is a lovely space to spend an hour or so at the weekend.
In the evening I took a trip over the river to The Crystal for a piece of interactive theatre called ‘New Atlantis.’ I will try not to spoil the ending here but don’t read on if you don’t want to know any details.
Participants, or agents as we were called, had to gather up as much information about the three departments that make up an organisation ‘New Atlantis,’ which is at the forefront of the fight against Climate Change. It is the year 2050 and the world is very changed, with water resources the centre of much of the human race’s problems. As agents we had to vote on which department we wanted to lead the organisation forward: The Department of Defence, the Department of Reform or the Department of Industry. I visited each department and quizzed them on their plans and was pleased to find out that some of the people I was talking to were real life scientists from UCL demoing real technologies available to us now and in the near future.
Slightly unsure about what lay ahead!
I won’t say too much more but there was quite the surprise at the end when the head of the Department of Reform stole all my ideas in her speech and my husband went rogue with ‘Generation Alpha’ and donned a rather scary mask in a bid to take down New Atlantis.
To find out more about what our staff at the Sustainable Development Unit do please check out the rest of our blog or drop us a question at sustainability@gre.ac.uk or @Sust_Greenwich.
As the beautiful Autumn colours begin to fade into the stark grey, white and blues of winter, the gardeners’ task changes from a focus on planting, watering, weeding and harvesting to one of replenishing the soil, picking the last of the harvest and tucking the garden in for the winter.
Besides the harvest in the Edible Garden, the campus and its surrounds contains so many edible plants that just ask to be foraged while the internet is a treasure trove of recipe ideas.
We had a bumper crop of blackberries in August, unusually early this year. On my way into work and at lunchtimes, I picked several pounds near Sparrows Farm and along the park cycle tracks. I took my home made scones, blackberry jelly and cream into work for the Clearing team. Some members had never tasted home-made jelly and all declared it far superior to the bought variety. The advantage of jelly over jam is that all the not-so-perfect fruit bits get strained out. I also used blackberries added to stewed apples and pears, sweetened with honey gathered from the beehives on the campus and sold in the student union shop.
I cooked rhubarb by chopping it into 2-3 cm lengths, spreading the pieces in a baking dish, adding grated ginger and a small amount of water then sprinkling it all with honey or brown sugar before and baking it for about 20 minutes at 180oC.
Tucked away at back of the campus I discovered a lone damson plum tree. These plums are tiny and taking their stones out is a nightmare so I made a batch of damson jelly; just as delicious as the blackberry version and just as nice with scones and cream!
We grew squashes in the garden that made wonderful soup while the courgettes (or zucchinis) were delicious cooked as a main course vegetable. The zucchini cakes I made using a recipe I found online sold like hotcakes at our MacMillan fundraiser during Freshers’ week.
We grew a bumper crop of tomatoes in our polytunnel which are lovely munched straight from the vine, eaten raw with salad or in snacks or cooked with other vegetables spiced with our chilli peppers. I made my first batch of green tomato chutney that I am itching to try but because it needs to mature it will not be ready until Christmas.
We are still picking the last of the rainbow chard and I have enjoyed steaming it or using it as a substitute for spinach in my spinach and brown rice bake – a family favourite from Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course book. My most recent experimentation has been making soup from our Jerusalem artichokes. Combined with onions, garlic, celery, carrots and chicken stock it tasted wonderful.
Spending time in the garden allows me time to relax and recharge away from the busy atmosphere of the Enquiry Unit. I have met so many lovely people there that I would never have met otherwise. Cooking and sharing food that I have helped to grow from seed is a wonderfully rewarding experience, and I cannot recommend it more highly.
Below: homemade jams, chutneys and cakes from garden produce.
There is no such thing as a free lunch…perhaps this is not so true especially if you know how to forage.
Foraging for wild food is what humans used to do before we became sedentary and reliant on agriculture. Now people are flooding back to foraging not only for the free food but to connect back with nature and learn more about the different foods that we tend not to find in the supermarket so much.
Alex and Emily from the Sustainability Team were invited to a foraging day in Abbey Wood by Barracuda Digital, a digital marketing agency. The day was hosted by the Caravan Club and Napiers, to put existing foraging skills to the test and to learn more about what to look out for and the history of these plants in herbal medicine. Below they recount what they learnt and how foraging could become a regular event at the University of Greenwich.
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On a beautiful spring morning we were invited to the Abbey Wood Caravan Club site to meet up with other London bloggers and delve into the world of foraging. We had had some experience of foraging but this was mostly limited to picking Sloes for gin and Blackberries for jam so were looking forward to learning more about the wild food available on our doorstep.
We started the day meeting Monica Wilde who was to be our guide for a 3 hour session around the site and Lenses Abbey Wood.
Monica is a director at Napiers- the herbal and plant remedy business, as well as an active foraging business.
“I live in a field in West Lothian. 4 wild acres where I am planting and encouraging medicinal and foraging species. I have been fascinated by herbs and plants since childhood. My original interest was sparked by a wild childhood in Kenya, where I was introduced to herbal medicine by a local Kikuyu herbalist at the age of six. We were outdoors most of the time and I remember with joy the freedom of those early years. I love foraging for wild food as well as wild medicine and would happily never visit a supermarket again.”
We started with the innocuous daisy found on most lawns and learnt a fancy dinner party trick that we will definitely be trying out. When picked, daisies will start to close up however once dropped in liquid they begin to slowly open up again. For a spectacular starter you can drop a couple of closed daisies onto your soup and your guests will be impressed as the daisies open up before their eyes.
Alex sampling some bitter cress.
We also took a look at the common dandelion which is a rich source of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. The leaves can be used in a salad or cooked. Flowers can be made into juice, or added into many recipes. You can even use the root and dry it to be used in dandelion tea.
There were many things to taste enroute and we sampled wild garlic, wild parsley hawthorn buds, common chickweed, pineapple weed and the favourite of the day which were the buds from a bramble bush which inexplicable taste like coconut!
Foraging for Wild Garlic and Wild Parsley, and learning about the dangers of Hemlock (also known as poison parsley)!
As well as expanding our knowledge in botany we also had a crash course in herbal medicine learning some historical applications of herbs as well as things we could benefit from now. Women have used the seeds from the wild carrot plant for centuries as a contraceptive, the earliest written reference dates back to the late 5th or 4th century B.C.
Wild carrot with its distinctive purple spot.
Now we may not be trying this one out for ourselves but Emily did try some crushed clove roots on her wisdom tooth and will be reaching for the clove oil in future and not the paracetamol.
Monica cleans and cut some clove roots for Emily’s tooth
Alex found it extremely useful to learn about how to use dock plant sap to sooth stings from nettles. After a lifetime of mindlessly rubbing her hands and legs with the leaves of the dock plant, we learnt how it is actually the sticky sap at the base of the plant that you should rub onto your stings! If you venture into the base of the dock plant, around the point that the leaves divide above ground, you will find a sticky substance ‘as if someone has blown their nose in the middle of the plant’, as Monica described it. It is gross, but very worth it!
Monica ventures into the base of the plant to find some of that magical dock sap
Foraging for food is extremely seasonal, allowing you find a huge variety of foods throughout the year. Successful foraging is also reliant on the ability to follow the food. Summer is a great time to forage on the coast for a huge range of edible seaweeds rich in iodine. Autumn is the perfect time to stock up on mushrooms (reliant on knowing what to pick of course!) and nuts for your winter larder.
We hope to return to Abbey Wood in autumn to see what seasonal changes have done to the wild food available.
The smell of wild garlic gave it away as to what Emily was eating.
Now that we have caught the foraging bug we hope to continue this on our own patch. Learning your area and watching how it changes over the year is a great way to start and we would like to bring together people from around the University who either already know something about foraging and would like to share this knowledge, or people who are interested in learning more.
Foraging is a great way to get outside, enjoy the seasons and connect back with an aspect of nature that was so important in our human history. Foraging can help us connect to history, what we put on our plates, health and or course can be a social event too.
Delving into the hogsweed looking for delicious buds.
Thanks to Monica from Napiers who provided a very interesting and fun day out, and the Caravan Club for having us rummage around the bushes of your site in Abbey Wood. We would like to send special thanks to Barracuda Digital for arranging and running the day and encouraging us to meet other London bloggers!
So if you are interested in foraging at the University or would like to know more about our visit please get in touch at sustainability@gre.ac.uk
I am Daniela Gangan and I will be joining the Sustainability team as a Fairtrade intern.
I am a first year student at the University of Greenwich, currently studying Business with Law. I moved from Romania to the UK for a change of environment, educational system and way of thinking. I like challenges and getting involved in a variety of projects in order to gain experience. Sometimes I volunteer and I like getting to know new people from different backgrounds. I am passionate about sport, music and photography.
I consider this internship to be a great opportunity to get involved with sustainability at Greenwich and to learn more about ethical business and the importance of supporting local producers. Furthermore, I am excited about the chance of studying sustainability in more detail, a growing movement in the UK. In addition to the knowledge gained from my course, my Fairtrade internship will allow me to understand better the consumer insight of ethical brands and give me experience of event organization for Fairtrade Fortnight. Studying Business with Law, I would like to develop professional skills that can help me in my future career. Similarly, ethical and positive businesses are essential to sustainability. I believe that getting more people involved in sustainability will improve the chances of moving to a sustainable society.
What is Fairtrade?
Fairtrade is about better wages, decent working conditions, local sustainability and fair terms of trade for producers in developing countries. It has a strong vision of justice and sustainable development in all trade structures and practices.
The Fairtrade Foundation is a charitable organization that has expanded to Europe, Japan, North America, and Mexico, with the launch of the first Fairtrade label Max Havelaar in 1988. The Fairtrade major principles are to cope with poverty and injustice through trade, and to bring together producers and consumers in a vision to move to a more sustainable society. Therefore, for certain products (such as coffee, cocoa, cotton and rice) Fairtrade only certifies small farmer organisations. Fairtrade standards protect workers’ rights according to International Labour Organization conventions, including health and safety standards, freedom of association, collective bargaining, no discrimination and no bonded or illegal child labour. Since Fairtrade’s beginnings in the 1980s and the launch of the current Fairtrade Mark in 2002, Fairtrade has become the most widely recognized ethical label in the world and is a growing brand in the UK. It is a chance to start protecting natural resources, to produce goods with care and to convince customers that Fairtrade products are better in the longer-term. However, it needs a lot of dedication and involvement to find and to create best deals for farmers and to gain the trust of people who would invest in a brighter future, thus the Fairtrade Foundation work hard in order to do this.
Fairtrade is about trust and transparency. It is a social initiative that has opportunities for students to get involved in a wide range of projects, such as Fairtrade Fortnight. I am very concerned about the ethical and the social responsibility in business.
Therefore, Fairtrade is a great method to promote awareness and create an alliance of ethically thinking people who will help build community.
Fairtrade Fortnight!
Fairtrade Fortnight (24 February – 9 March 2014) marks the launch of a special campaign that aims to transform the banana industry. It is a campaign initiating the movement Make Food Fair.
To support the Fairtrade Fortnight everyone can pre-order event packs, stickers, T-shirts, ethically sourced bananas suits and inflatable bananas. Moreover, there is free access to recipes, quizzes, presentations and a media toolkit.
The University will be participating in Fairtrade Fortnight, and if you would like to get involved please email sustainability@gre.ac.uk!
My masters course has allowed me to sample sustainability in a range of organisations, from a charity to a local authority, from Bank of America to a multi-national company. It also allowed me to look at the idea of ‘systems change’, for example, how can we cause change for sustainability in the complex food system, or the energy system? I’m looking forward to putting my learning into practice at Greenwich.
I’ll be looking after the Sustainability Management System and helping Emily out with other sustainability projects. These projects include Green Impact and the Carbon Management Plan, and I’ll also be helping with sustainability events such as the Green Week. Green Impact is a behaviour change project where teams are rewarded for their efforts, so get in contact with the sustainability team if you would like to know more! I’m especially looking forward to getting to know the sustainability champions and spotting new opportunities for sustainability at Greenwich.
Greenwich is a leader in Sustainability within Higher Education, coming 6th this year in the People & Planet’s ‘Green League’, and this is what made me so attracted to working here. So far everyone has been friendly and welcoming and I’m very impressed with the garden!
As I settle in, you may see me wandering round the campuses so I hope to meet as many staff and students as possible on my travels. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at a.giles@greenwich.ac.uk, or if you have any questions about Sustainability at the University of Greenwich then email sustainability@greenwich.ac.uk.