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.
When it came to my vote, I went for the Revolution!
Sunday
Sundays are for reading and napping!
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.
