Category: Partnerships and Engagement

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Chelsea Fringe 2013

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The University of Greenwich held its first community event at the Avery Hill Community Garden as part of the Chelsea Fringe festival. Dragos Buharu, a 2nd year Business School student studying BA Business with Marketing was in attendance and here he gives you his perspective of the day.

Chelsea Fringe 2013 –Even the weather couldn’t ruin our fun!!

The Chelsea Fringe Community Event was hosted by the University of Greenwich at the Avery Hill Campus on the 7th of June. As an intern with the sustainability team I was there to find out what makes this event special.

“The Fringe is all about harnessing and spreading some of the excitement and energy that fizzes around gardens and gardening. The idea is to give people the freedom and opportunity to express themselves through the medium of plants and gardens, to open up possibilities and to allow full participation.” Chelsea Fringe.

The event at Avery Hill in keeping with the Fringe’s ethos aimed to celebrate the spirit of community, mixing the unique excitement that can be found around a beautiful edible garden.

Chelsea Fringe Event 2013: A group of people in a park gathered around vegetable planters.

Chelsea Fringe Event 2013

Dragos’ Chelsea Diary

After having turned up early to help out with last minute touches, I accompanied James Hallybone from Roundfield and some of the University’s Sustainability Champions on a tour of the forest garden.

The tour was interesting, educational and very surprising. At first, when you look around you just see tiny trees but when you learn about what they are the effect is jaw dropping. At one point we came across what looked to me like just a ball of twigs looking slightly out of place, then it was introduced as pomegranate tree! The same experience followed when faced with almonds and bamboo. All I could think was: “Seriously?!” while looking left and right for some panda to jump out at us!

Mulch matting round one of our forest garden trees

Having been ‘very’ tired after my exertions we went on to enjoy the fresh foods that Greenwich Community Food Coop and the University had to offer. Let me add there was some very good and refreshing wine present. Greenwich Community Food Co-op (GCFC) was established in 2002 as a co-operative run by the community for the community and started life on the Ferrier Estate, Kidbrooke.

Paul Harvey from Sodexo who cater for the University at the Avery Hill Southwood Site was pleased to be part of the event.

“Sodexo are very committed to sustainable food offers & are always looking at ways of taking this forward.”

The Transport Team enjoying the Sustainable Food Menu from Sodexo

During all of this excitement there was a living wall being constructed by students from the School of Architecture, Design and Construction only feet away, and yes there was a lot of green in there.

Newcome Edwards from the School of Architecture, Design and Construction

Afterwards I decided to check out the bees in the observation hive, brought in by our resident beekeepers from the Ruxley beekeeping group, Colin and Patrick. The Queen was easy to spot from the yellow mark put on her back, and it was clear to see that she was bigger than the rest!

As the event kept going we were joined 2 groups of kids from the Crafty Wizard’s Nursery. They went on a mini beast hunt, accompanied by our very own Emily Mason from the Sustainability Team. The children were very cool and I even got a thumbs up from one of tiniest members of the group. When discovering an earwig and asked why they are called as such, the majority decided: “Because they wear wigs”. Sensible enough answer, right? They also did some planting of their own.

These are only some of the activities that went on, throughout the day there was:

Competitions
Planting
Young beekeepers from Corelli’s School
Seed and Plant Swapping
Orchard tours
Workshops
 
 

Who can get the longest peel?

Throughout the day I spoke to lots of people and decided to get some feedback on why people had come and long and what they had enjoyed the most. A staff member from the School of Architecture, Design and Construction came to see what was growing in the garden and to learn more about sustainable food sources. She was particularly impressed with the scale of things, the diversity present and with the maintenance of our raised beds. And yes, a lot of work goes into making them look that good, I myself spent quite a lot of time mowing the grass round the site with a rather temperamental push mower.

While approaching another person I was thinking: “Hmmmm, she looks like she’s having a good time”. Apparently she is pro sustainability and her parents have had an allotment for about 40 years. She was also surprised by the diversity present in the forest garden and believes it to be a very good idea. She was also very impressed by the bees and growth present in general.

The British weather was as unpredictable as ever and after a heat wave all week we encountered a rather heavy downpour but this did not stop us for sure. And what is a bit of gardening without a bit of rain?

Let’s hope the garden continues to grow and more people get to benefit from this project though volunteering and purchasing the fresh produce. It is also a lovely place to hang out as a student and you never know when there might be free food up for grabs!

For more information about the event of the garden in general please contact Emily Mason at sustainability@gre.ac.uk

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Students Auditing the University of Greenwich for ISO14001 Accreditation

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Over the past few weeks the University has been doing a lot of internal auditing as it prepares for four days of ISO14001 auditing of its sustainability management system. As a response to the increasing need for graduates to demonstrate true work experience – the Sustainability Team saw this as a perfect opportunity to get students involved and provide some professional auditing experience.

Students get to grips with the requirements for ISO14001

Students from the Sustainable Futures MSc course and the Environmental Conservation MSc received internal auditor training from the Sustainability Team then accompanied them on audits of the Avery Hill and Medway Campuses. ISO14001 is the world’s most widely recognised environmental management system accreditation (used in 159 different countries) and demonstrates organisations that are working to ensure legal compliance and moving towards best practice for environmental management. Many of the students will end up using systems based on the ISO14001 requirements if they move into environmental management roles once they graduate, hence auditing the system provides them a fantastic opportunity for experiencing it firsthand.

The students ended up being involved in walk-round audits of both campuses, audits of kitchens on campus, the grounds storage areas, waste storage areas and also audited some of the documentation including the Sustainability Policy, Environmental Aspects & Impacts Register and the Sustainability Objectives & Targets.

A typical item the students were checking for on the walk-round and waste storage audits would be an item of waste that is classed as hazardous (e.g. batteries, electrical equipment , oils, chemicals)  stored incorrectly or in the wrong area. If they found anything like this they would decide whether it is a major or minor non-conformance or just an observation. Once the non-conformance or observation has been reported and written up by the students the Sustainability Team would take the necessary corrective action. For example if the auditors found an item of electrical equipment stored with general waste that is not designed for electrical waste they would then feed this information back to the campus management team and ensure the responsible persons were informed of the correct action and legal requirements.

The students were not just looking for things that are wrong though; there is room in the auditing process to note items that are examples of best practice or being done particularly well. The students auditing the kitchens found huge enthusiasm and good knowledge from the chefs and catering staff for the sustainable and Fairtrade food that they were serving.

A chef at Medway shows off the seasonal produce in the fridge

The experience of doing the audits and reporting on them will be an invaluable experience for the students involved and is intended to fill any potential employers with confidence in the student’s ability to transfer from sustainability scholars to sustainability professionals. Aside from this, the experience has been hugely positive for the University as well as it moves towards gaining ISO14001 accreditation. The internal auditing process is key in ironing out any problems with the management of the campuses from a sustainability or environmental point of view, and the items that our students picked out over the course of the audits are being actioned now in time for our external ISO14001 auditors arriving.

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Students Working for Sustainability and Festive Cheer

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This week the Sustainability Team has been finding a little bit of time in between eating mince pies and chocolates to consider the opportunities we have for students working in the Sustainability Office. We met Sarah Sheikh from the Business School, who has been encouraged by Mary McCartney (Business School Sustainability Champion), to find out what we have within the Sustainability Team for students to get involved in.
As usual the Sustainability Team is looking for students to become involved in all sorts of projects relating to a multitude of different subjects. The first position we are offering through the Business School is the position of Fairtrade Intern. With Fairtrade Fortnight coming up in February and March next year there is loads of Fairtrade fun to get involved with and great opportunity for a student to get experience in running events, project management, communications, administration, charity sector work and of course trying out all the latest Fairtrade products – whether it is chocolate, bananas or cotton buds! Sarah will be inviting Business School students to make an application to the role and if you are the lucky chosen student you will get a chance to really get involved and help influence the University’s policies and delivery of Fairtrade events.
Naomi Debrah the 2010/11 Fairtrade Intern
The Sustainability Team will not be stopping there though! We have many more opportunities within the team for all sorts of different things, just last week Stuart Ashenden  in the School of Engineering recruited a student to start auditing the University’s water usage, following on from previous projects completed by students on the University’s energy use and travel. We currently have a couple of students working with Debbie Bartlett in the School of Science on the biodiversity projects going on across the campuses, you may remember Michael Fray providing us with some excellent bee photos while conducting a bee survey at Avery Hill: http://greengreenwich.blogspot.com/2011/04/bees-found-on-campus.html and recently Charmaine Wijemanna presented to the Biodiversity Steering Group on a pioneering new project developing the University’s Campus Management Plan: http://www2.gre.ac.uk/about/news/articles/2011/a2124-landscape-ecology-msc. At the School of Education the students training to be teachers are currently implementing sustainability projects in the schools where they are completeing their placement.
Isabelle Monk collecting for the end-of-term Re-use Project

The Sustainability Team is always keen to make the best use of the amazing resource we have within the student population and we have loads more opportunities whether it is with Fairtrade, biodiversity, waste, communications, event management, water, energy, video making……. anyway you get the picture! Thinking back over the last year the Sustainability Team has been greatly supported by student interns who have all now gone on to graduate and find employment, often with a bit of support from the Sustainability Team as well. Naomi Debrah was our most recent Fairtrade intern, a great personality during Green Week this year and instrumental in gaining the University Fairtrade status. Stefano Maggi has gone onto work for an Australian radio station after being the driving force behind the communications of Green Week, Catherine Brown and Keir Burrows have both found work after helping us with our environmental management system and Isabelle Monk who worked on the end-of-year Re-use scheme went on to get a job in the charity sector and now works at ATD Fourth World.

As well as asking for some new student interns this Christmas we have also noticed that Santa has been starting to consider his environmental impact and the carbon footprint of his work. Ethical Ocean have had a go at measuring Santa’s carbon footprint for him:

Infographic Source: http://tiny99.com/726453  

And Santa also got Futerra to compile an end of year sustainability report for him. http://www.futerra.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Santa_CSR_Report1.pdf

If you are considering how you can have a green Christmas you may want to check out how to ‘upcycle’ a Christmas tree: http://www.upcyclemania.com/

Whatever you are doing this Christmas the Sustainability Team wish you a very merry holiday season and a happy new year: http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/JprvaFyHoYsE1cee