Hello all! I am Emily Crockford and I will be working alongside Kat and John as a sustainability projects officer for Greenwich. It is great to be working for Greenwich and to be back in London and I am excited to be involved with all the fantastic projects happening here.
My love of all things environmental started with my love of the book, ‘The Lord of the Rings’. Amongst my teenage love of Legolas the elf there was one moment that really stuck with me: when the Wizard Saruman orders for the trees of Fangorn to be chopped down to fuel the fires of war I remember thinking that it was all an incredible waste, and so the seed of sustainability was planted!
Legolas hear's Emily calling!
My background is in wildlife conservation after studying my degree with the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent; and I then went onto an internship and volunteering with the RSPB on their London Parks House Sparrow project. If there was one thing that I learnt from other conservationists and in my time trying to conserve wildlife it was that climate change was probably going to undo all our good efforts! It was this that finally nudged me over into sustainability and back to the University of Kent to run their Green Impact project for two years.
Emily Litter Picking
Green Impact is a behavioural change projects aimed at staff to increase their pro-environmental behaviours. The same scheme is run at Greenwich so if you have not heard of this before or think you would like to take part get in touch with us and we will tell you all about it.
While at Kent I also took on the role of Environmental Coordinator for nine months which meant I covered a range of sustainability projects from promoting Fairtrade produce to writing procedure for the ISO 14001 environmental management system. Working in sustainability within Higher Education is extremely satisfying as the range of projects available means there is a lot to get stuck into. I have also found that the diversity of people to engage with makes the whole job a lot more interesting.
At Greenwich I will be predominantly working on carbon reduction, especially in regards to engaging staff and students with the carbon management plan. The University of Greenwich has committed to reducing our emissions by 30% (from our 2009/2010 baseline) by 2015/2016 and it will take everyone’s input to hit this target. If you are interested in how you as an individual can help please do get in touch, and I look forward to meeting and working with you all!
It has been an exciting past few weeks at the Avery Hill Campus as the community garden allotment has started to take shape. The garden now has eleven raised beds built, four of them filled with compost, a line of compost bins ready for our waste and a huge pile of compost donated from CJS Plants who occupy the (plant) nursery on the Mansion Site.
We have managed to achieve this in just four work days and the hard work of 25 staff and student volunteers! The garden is very much still in its early stages, and we still haven’t actually planted anything yet but the good news is we will be starting that on Wednesday.
We are going to be joined by Capital Growth who will be taking us through the basic skills required for looking after a community garden and showing us what to plant, how to plant it, when to plant it and where to plant it. We will be taught about companion planting and how certain species of plants work as well together in the vegetable patch as they do in the soup pot! Of course everyone is welcome to come along whether you are a student, staff member, friend, relative or just curious – we will be at the garden from 12noon – 6pm. Email: sustainability@gre.ac.uk to find out more.
The first work day saw ten of us uncover a shot put circle, reveal the base of a burned down shed and build the compost pens from pallets that had been recovered from around the campus. The shot put circle is a legacy from sports fields that used to be on the site, last year we removed the hammer throw to make room for our orchard! The end result can be seen below:
Compost bins built from recycled pallets
The following work day we then focussed towards getting some raised beds built, using second hand scaffold boards salvaged in East London and wooden posts we were able to start constructing the beds. The raised beds are being treated with a non toxic wood preserve which means the beds should survive through the wet weather without starting to rot and break up – the non toxic preserve is chosen specifically to make sure that any preserve leaching into the soil is harmless to any plants and vegetable being grown. The method for building is very simple – driving four coach screws through the boards and into the posts at each corner and while we have made the best effort to make sure the corners are at 90 degree angles apparently the vegetables won’t mind the eccentricities that we may have created!
Constructing the first raised bed
The beds have been set straight on top of the ground and are starting to be filled with compost. The compost will block off the light to the grass below meaning it will die off and start to rot and become part of the compost too. As the beds get worked on and the vegetables grow the soil and nutrients below ground level will eventually become part of the soil the fruit and vegetable plants will be growing into. This means that while the beds may appear quite short and as though you wouldn’t be able to go particularly deep the vegetables and roots of the plants will in fact be going below the ground level.
Loading the compost from the truck into the bed
We are now at a stage where the last few beds need to have the wood preserve painted on them and the rest of the compost beds need to be filled with the compost we have on site. The four of them that are already filled just need some seeds and seedlings planted into them and then for nature to work its magic!
Raised beds ready for filling, painting and planting!
Sustainability intern Linda takes over the blog once again and tells us what she thought of Dominic Fry’s lecture to the Business School on Marks & Spencer’s Plan A.
On March 7th, the Business School at University of Greenwich had invited Dominic Fry of Marks & Spencer to give a lecture on the company’s Plan A commitments and its 2015 plan of becoming the world’s most sustainable retailer. It was a great opportunity from students across disciplines to learn more about sustainability in retail, how to communicate such initiatives to consumers and get an idea of how corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be implemented in a large corporation. With a special interest in fashion supply chains, I was personally really excited to hear from such a significant and acknowledged UK clothing retailer.
Dominic Fry is the Director of Communications and Investor Relations at Marks & Spencer. Fry has 30 years of experience from PR and communications, and his impressive resume includes past director roles at J Sainsbury plc and ScottishPower plc. At Marks & Spencer, Fry is responsible for all internal and external communications and reports to shareholders and the chief executive.
Marks & Spencer is present in 42 countries and 1/3 of Britain’s population shops with Marks & Spencer once a week. Those are amazing figures, and it is evident that the supply chain of a retailer of such magnitude will have an impact on the environment as well as the people in the value chain. Fry emphasized how the global climate that we currently live in is the fastest it’s ever been: the phone calls made in all of 1998 is the same number of phone calls in 2012 made in a DAY! This fast-paced environment results in plenty of challenges for a big company, including food, health and safety, a growing population and naturally, climate issues such as global warming.
How does Marks & Spencer cope with the accelerating paces of today? Plan A was launched in 2006 to address issues such as climate change, fair trade and environmental issues. The plan comprised of 100 sustainability commitments, and 80 more were added in 2010. Some successes that have come about as a result of plan A include a 28% package reduction in food and clothing, 23% more energy-efficient stores and a 34% total waste reduction across sites and stores.
Sourcing decisions are especially interesting when talking about sustainability and CSR, as the sourcing strategy a company adopts has such a significant bearing on people and environment. We learned that Marks & Spencers suppliers are all accredited factories that have to abide by plan A principles and are audited independently on a regular basis. It even boils down to seemingly small situations like a needle dropping on the floor in a production line. In such an event, all operations need to be stopped to locate the needle so it can be removed! Moreover, having a growing number of ethical model factories in the supply base is also a huge focus for the company.
Plan A is about doing the right thing, but it is also about energy and cost savings. The extensive program was a 200 million pound investment, but has also saved the company 50 million pound resulting from more energy-efficient solutions. This goes on to prove that sustainability really can be hugely cost-efficient! Every Marks & Spencer shop has a “Plan A champion”, whose role includes being an advocate for Plan A, encouraging other staff members to follow correct procedures in for instance handling of waste and recycling and generally being an ethical and sustainable ambassador.
How does Marks & Spencer communicate all of these efforts to the consumer? Fry highlighted the important point of patience in such communications – it does take a really long time to get it across to customers. But as fair trading and sustainable sourcing should be long term commitments, it makes sense that it takes time to build up that trust with the customer as well. Going forward, one challenge is the online community and the potentials, and possible pitfalls, of social media. This is a resource that Marks & Spencers wants to utilize better in the future. Moreover, the company hopes to accentuate that part of its vision is their stand on social good. Just looking at last year’s riots, it is clear that there is a lot of anger in young people, dealing with challenges such as unemployment and rising tuition fees.
We found it to be a really inspiring lecture, and it’s nice to see that it is possible to make more conscious consumer choices on the high street. Next time you step into a Marks & Spencer’s, you might want to pick up a can of sustainably sourced tuna, a fair trade t-shirt or a 100% recycled polyester cushion?
Today Julia Raybould, who has been working tirelessly with the Sustainability Team to help us gain our ISO14001 accreditation for our sustainability management system takes over the blog and gives us an insight into how sustainability relates to economics. Here she focusses on the discount rate, an element from her masters dissertation she did for her MPhil in Environmental Policy at Cambridge.
Julia is leaving the Sustainability Team today and heading for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs but in the few months she has been working with us in the Sustainability Team she has been a driving force in getting our sustainability management system up to ISO14001 standards. We wish her the best of luck in her new role and HMRC can be rest assured they are getting an absolute gem!
Sustainable Economics
Sustainability is said to stand on three pillars – environment, society and economics. The Economics Pillar is often forgotten or is only discussed in the context of cost savings. But, as the economy and economic growth features more in the media and society is scrambling to find solutions to debt and growth on a finite planet, the economic pillar is coming into its own. Think tanks such as the New Economics Foundation and RESOLVE are considering alternative solutions to creating a sustainable economy.
One area where economics and sustainability overlap is in the appraisal of potential sustainability projects – whether this is the purchase of renewable energy technologies or investing in biodiversity initiatives.
The all important discount rate
A critical decision in most financial appraisals is the choice of the discount rate, because this little number has a huge impact on whether long term costs and benefits are considered important. Because of its importance, the ‘correct’ value for a discount rate has been a controversial issue for most of the 20th Century.
But what is a discount rate? It is a value multiplied to the costs and benefits at each period in time over the project’s duration. This enables future and present values to be compared. For example, one pound discounted at a rate of 3.5% in 30 years has a net present value of £0.36 today. Thus, very quickly future benefits can become negligible when high discount rates are used.
On the whole, a high discount rate favours projects with immediate or short returns on investment. Any project with a medium- or long-term payback is shown in an unfavourable light. As environmental investments often have high upfront costs with paybacks over long periods of time, when combined with a high discount rate, these projects will appear financially unsound. However, this is not necessarily the case. If a lower discount rate had been chosen, the same project may appear to be a great investment.
If the discount rate is so influential and yet so subjective, shouldn’t more people consider it when making investment decisions??
In the last ten years, the UK government has stepped up to the challenge. The HM Treasury guidance now requires much lower discount rates to be used for long-term project appraisals.
More dramatically, the Stern Review’s Economics of Climate Change argued that due to climate change’s unique characteristics – impacts that last hundreds of years and potentially causing large-scale damage for future generations – meant that an even lower discount rate, close to zero should be used.
Since the Stern Review, HM Treasury has released additional guidance stating that in the evaluation of projects that will involve “substantial and, for all practical purposes, irreversible wealth transfers between generations” and are very long term (in excess of 50 years) a much lower discount rate is advocated (HM Treasury 2008, p.4). This acknowledges that some projects will impact upon the very wellbeing of future generations and the discount rate should reflect this.
How does this affect you?
When considering future environmental projects at your organisation, it is worth questioning the discount rate used, specifically:
For any project with a lifetime greater than 30 years, the argument can be made to use a low discount rate.
For very long term projects, e.g. climate change mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity or ecosystem services, a discount rate close to zero matches the UK government’s approach.
Finally, it is fair to request a sensitivity analysis of the discount rate be completed for all sustainability investment appraisals. This means that the same analysis is undertaken using different discount rates (low and high). Vastly different results will demonstrate that further deliberation is needed regarding the most appropriate value for the discount rate.
Today’s blog post comes from Linda Marie Schoyen. Linda has been working with the Sustainability Team as an intern and has designed many of the posters you have probably seen around the campuses advertising Green Week and the Fairtrade Fortnight events. Linda is a specialist when it comes to sustainability fashion and has a strong interest in Fairtrade and ethical branding, she currently works for Fashion-conscience.com which is a leading eco and ethical retailer for fine fashionable clothing.
Linda Marie Schoyen - definitely the most fashionable member of the Sustainability Team
During Fairtrade Fortnight, the Sustainability team invited the World Development Movement to encourage debate on the role of the big banks and financial speculators in the trade of typical fairtrade commodities such as cocoa and sugar. The World Development Movement’s Simon Mayes gave a fascinating, and alarming, insight into the consequences of food price speculation at Greenwich campus on February 28th. On March 1st at Medway campus, food and finance campaigner Christine Haigh, also from the World Development Movement, carried the flame and asked: how can we ensure genuine fair trade?
Simon Mayes, February 28th, Greenwich Campus: Betting on Hunger: the Role of Banks in Causing Food Price Rises
The Sustainability Team was joined by a whole host of people from the University and local area including lecturers from the School of Education and Business School – including Benny Dembitzer, British economist, member of a team that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 and the person who set up the first shop in the UK dealing with what we now know as Fairtrade. We toasted the evening with a few glasses Fairtrade wine and had some delicious Fairtrade cakes and chocolates to get us in the mood for the talk from the World Development Movement.
Tucking into the Fairtrade delights provided by ABM Catering
We learned that food prices are affected by a number of variables. Shifting dieatary habits, climate change affecting crops, the growth in world population and the value of the dollar all have an impact on food price trends. However, Mayes emphasised that many of these factors are more long term and do not logically account for sudden price changes such as the unprecedented price spikes of 2008. Banks and hedge funds speculating on future food prices are largely to blame for such swift food price spikes, resulting in severe consequences for the consumers in developing countries. From 2006 to 2011, US$126 billion was gambled on food price speculation. There is a wide consensus in the global political climate that betting on food prices in financial markets needs to be regulated to prevent massive price hikes from aggravating poverty and hunger.
When prices increase on other commodities such as electronics, fuel or oil, many people will budget around the increases and reduce their consumption. With food, however, consumers in developing countries simply cannot budget for price rises; one has to eat to survive. Consequently, results of food speculation can be devastating for the poorest consumers in the world.
What can we do to make a change? According to Mayes, we can demand tougher rules from the Treasury to enforce on banks involved in food price speculation. Get in touch and pressure them! You can learn more about how to make a difference by joining WDM or signing up to their newsletter. Another resource for more information on how you can get involved and in-depth research on the issue can be found on WDM’s Food Speculation Resources site.
Christine Haigh, March 1st, Medway Campus: Taking on the 1%: Demanding Fairer Trade
At Medway Campus, the Sustainability Team was joined by enthusiastic staff as well as experts on environmental sustainability, food and farming. It was great to see so many people with such expert knowledge in environmental and farming issues engaging in the debate.
University of Kent Student's Union provided the wine supplies for the event
Haigh gave an introduction to the concept of Fairtrade and its origins. Fairtrade is a social movement and a market-based approach that was shaped in Europe in the 1960s, providing markets for producers. The Fairtrade movement has grown substantially over the past few decades, and even though it represents a small fraction of world trade in physical merchandise, some Fairtrade products account for 20-50% of all sales in their product categories in individual countries.
Despite the success of Fairtrade products, the movement cannot singlehandedly deliver an international fair trading system, this would require huge international market regulations that are way beyond the Fairtrade movement’s influence. Haigh continued on Mayes’ topic from Greenwich campus on the the alarming consequences that food speculation can have on some of the world’s poorest people. Contrary to common belief, high food prices are not necessarily good for farmers. High prices do not necessarily benefit the farmers when a Fairtrade scheme isn’t in place, but often the benefits go to the big companies who trade on a far grander scale on the international markets.
What do the WDM think a fair food system would look like?
Everyone would have right to food
Producers recognised
Localised production would be a priority
There would be greater control of resources, knowledge and skills
The food system would be environmentally sustainable
What can you do? Get involved! Pressure and call for more transparency in food prices, and push for limits to be posed on individual banks and bodies.
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.
With the weather being dark and windy these last few days you may have thought it an odd title for this week’s blog but I must tell you about our brand new solar array!
Last month the University of Greenwich installed an array of photovoltaic solar panels that will be powering some of the student residencies at the Avery Hill Campus. The panels have been installed in time to benefit from the higher rate of the feed-in-tariff before the incentive was reduced in December. They now have been generating electricity for four weeks (at a time with the shortest amount of daytime) and have so far generated: 1,106 kWh this has given the University a combined total saved/earned of £485. On top of this the electricity generated is enough to power five student flats for a week in Aragon Court, (electricity, heating, hot water, the lot!) and all in the gloomiest weeks of the year.
Panels being hoisted onto the rooves at Avery Hill
The completed array on Aragon Court
The panels have a lifespan of around 25-30 years and will be generating electricity for free as long as there is daylight. In fewer than ten years the panels will have paid for themselves and then after this point they will be generating an electrifying profit!
In fact the return on investment for solar is so good that we have seen a few people putting up arrays on their private property. Jon Hudson of the Building Services Team has a small array of 6.5 kW on his house and when John Bailey went back to the west country for Christmas he noticed his mum had popped five panels up on the roof there – not quite the 190 odd we have up on Avery Hill but enough to turn the meter backwards when all the lights are off.
Kevin Behn from Human Resources, who is currently looking forward to starting work on his new allotment and getting on with some D.I.Y, has recently installed some solar panels on his house – and just in time to receive the maximum feed-in-tariff rate. Kevin has managed to get eight panels on his roof, an array that should produce around 1700 kWh per year, and is expecting to see the panels pay for themselves in eight to nine years, after that he still gets the feed-in-tariff for a further 16-17 years and any electricity generated then will be producing a profit. Kevin added a cautious ‘wait and see’ on his estimations but said that he ‘is more than staisfied’ with the panels so far. Like Kevin we’ll be hoping for a sunny 2012 here in the Sustainability Office and hoping that everyone’s solar panels perform as well as we’re predicting!
For those who are interested in finding out more about solar power and generating electricity and energy from renewable sources, the School of Engineering has a solar array consisting of five varieties of panel at the Medway Campus. The School have been testing the panels to see which ones produce the best yields when harvesting the sun’s energy. You can see the panels when you wonder up to the Wolfson Centre and can find out which panels you should be choosing more by contacting Ian Cakebread at the School.
Solar Wall of different panels at Medway
Launching in the next academic year is a new course that covers solar power along with a whole host renewable and sustainable electrical energy generation with the BEng Hons: Sustainable Electrical Power Engineering. This course will give graduates the necessary skills and attributes to take key roles within industry as professional engineers and give them an advantage in the growing clean energy sector. If you would like to find out more head to: http://www2.gre.ac.uk/study/courses/ug/eleng/suseleceng
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:
Today, Vicky Noden, Alumni Officer for the University of Greenwich, sustainability champion and keen runner writes a guest blog entry about an initiative that not only helps students in hardship but has a brilliant sustainability twist as well!
Vicky Noden – Alumni Officer and Sustainability Champion
The School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences (CMS) staff and students have been helping those in need of support at the university community…by reducing waste! The CMS School Office has been recycling and fundraising by collecting donations in exchange for second-hand stationery items. All the funds raised have been donated to the Alumni Fund to help support Greenwich students in financial difficulty.
The CMS School Office had a surplus of used items such as folders and ring binders, which were in good condition, and felt that they should be reused rather than simply thrown away. Their students snapped up the items, in exchange for a small donation, thereby saving them money on new stationery.
The initiative has raised £52 to help alleviate student hardship. This money alone could be enough to help enable several Greenwich students to carry on studying. Some students need a small bursary of just £10-£30 to see them through an emergency and to prevent them from having to miss lessons, or even drop out altogether. Students who have benefited from the fund in the past include: · A student who had their wallet stolen and had no money to get home · Several students whose student bursaries/loans were not paid on time, leaving them unable to buy food · A student who was the victim of online credit card fraud
We also have some very serious cases of students who have to flee their homes as a result of racial or domestic abuse. This fund also supports these individuals during desperate times and helps them to keep on studying.
A number of small contributions from students is helping to make a huge difference to the lives of others in our community. The CMS School Office has been specifically thanked for supporting the fund and it is wonderful that this also helps the university’s sustainability agenda. We are hoping this initiative may inspire other teams in the university to support others that are in need of help here at Greenwich.
Any other departments or offices in the university considering a similar fundraising initiative should contact Vicky in the Alumni and Development Office on 020 8331 7940 or e-mail v.r.noden@gre.ac.uk.
If you would like further information on what Vicky does for the Alumni Office, visit http://alumni.gre.ac.uk/and click on “Support Us” or contact the Alumni and Development Office directly.
Today staff, students, local residents, graduates, friends, family, children and a member of parliament came together to plant a community orchard at the University of Greenwich. At Avery Hill Campus a huge group of volunteers (and a couple of experts from the London orchard Project) took a break from their regular working day to get their hands dirty and plant one of 20 fruit trees in the new community orchard.
The orchard will be supplying staff, students and local residents with a tasty array of fruit (apples, pears, medlar, plums, cherries, damsons, mulberries) for coming decades! It has come as a result of a partnership between the University and the London Orchard Project, who are creating new community orchards in London’s unused spaces to promote community production and ownership of fruit. Plus of course helping us rediscover the pleasures of eating fruit grown close to home (or work). These community orchards are contributing towards the ‘greening’ of the urban environment and are creating new and enhanced habitats for wildlife – especially true at Avery Hill where the orchard will be surrounded by long grass and wildflowers which will be great for encouraging bees, insects and the predators of pests such as aphids and codling moths.
A dozen spades prepare for the digging
The orchard planting is part of a wider University push to improve and enhance the biodiversity on campus and promote local food. The majority of trees have been chosen to fruit during University term time and after three years some of the apple trees will be producing about 300 apples per crop. Students at Avery Hill will never need to buy an apple again!
Russell from the London Orchard Project teaching the volunteers how to plant a fruit tree
Claire Evenden, who came with her colleagues from the Student Records, planted an apple tree called a ‘Fiesta’, said she was looking forward to watching the tree grow from her window in the Bronte building.
Paulina Bush from the University of Greenwich nursery came along with a dozen children who planted two of the apple trees (Discovery and Pinova) with the spades they normally use for maintaining their forest garden. Paulina said that the children would be coming back to the orchard regularly to water the trees and of course help harvest the fruit as well!
The volunteers digging away and planting the trees
The plan is not to stop at just an orchard either. Close to the orchard we have a space on the Southwood Site where work is about to commence on a community allotment and forest garden, with plans for a nut orchard (or is that a nuttery?), a vineyard and hops also being considered for future food growing projects. Of course if you would like to find out more about any of the food growing projects or indeed get involved with the allotment and forest garden please email us at: sustainability@greenwich.ac.uk
Here is a complete list of the 20 fruit trees planted on campus today:
Apples: 1. Egremont Russet. Late Victorian English variety, most important commercial Russet, a hardy variety with a nutty, sweet flavour ripe in late September. Originated in Sussex in the early 1800s. 2. Falstaff. Very good disease and frost resistance, crisp and juicy red desert apple, ripe late September 3. Tydeman’s Late Orange. Variety raised in 1930s in Kent, rich aromatic flavour, firm and sweet, orange to red in colour, picking time mid October. A cross between a Laxton Superb and a Cox Orange Pippin, but a lot easier to grow than a Cox Orange Pippin. Picking time mid-October 4. Tentation. New variety, yellow to golden fruit, picking time late September and stores until March 5. Greensleaves. Green to yellow mid-season apple, tasting a bit like a Golden Delicious, picking time mid-September. We think this apple is essential due to the Henry VIII theme it shares with the campus buildings. Fruits mid-September. 6. Fiesta. Another Cox-like apple but hardier. Heavy cropping with brightly coloured, aromatic fruits, picking time early October. 7. Pinova. A hardy tree with Cox and Golden Delicious as parents. The fruit hangs late on the tree and stores well. Harvesting time late September. 8. Discovery. Bright red, crisp, juicy with a sharp fresh flavour. This is an early apple (early August) so will provide fruit for staff/ any students on campus over the summer. 9. Bramley’s seedling. The classic British cooker, grown from seed in a garden in Nottingham, the original tree is 200 years old and still going strong. Creamy white flesh, full of flabour – though there are alternative cookers if you want something more unusual. Also makes lovely sharp juice. 10. Howgate Wonder. A cooker that can also be eaten/ juiced when fully
ripe. Pale green with brown-red flush, fruits early October. Pears: 11. Doyenne du Comice. French pear grown from seed, first fruiting in 1849. Reached England in 1858 and soon became very popular for its delicious flavour and jucy texture. Picking mid-October. 12. Williams Bon Chretien. Pears known to the Romans, considered by the best pear in the 16th century. Raised by a schoolmaster in Aldermarston near Reading in 1770. Needs to be eaten off the tree in September as does not store. 13. Concorde. A reliable, heavy cropper with melting, juicy flesh. Picking time late October. Plums and other stone fruit: 14. Marjorie’s Seedling. Excellent late plum (picking time late September). Oval-shaped purple fruit with yellow flesh. 15. Victoria. A classic plum, discovered in a garden in Sussex and named after Queen Victoria. Picking time is August so another fruit for staff and summer-students to enjoy. 16. Shropshire Damson. A hardy damson with some plum-like characteristics. Best used for cooking and has a rich flavour but can also be eaten from the tree if left to ripen. Picking time late August / early September. 17. Cherry Early Rivers. One of the earliest cherries, with very dark skin and flesh, and excellent flavour. Produces a heavy crop, ready for picking in mid-June. 18. Cherry Stella. Juicy dark-red cherries, ready for picking in late July. Fruiting time isn’t ideal for students but it does make a good pollinator for other cherries. Other fruit: 19. Medlar. A beautiful, squat and spreading tree with attractive blossom. It is also interesting from heritage perspective, being popular in the middle ages and mentioned by Chaucer as being “ripe when rotten”. Picking time is November and the fruits should then be left to decay (blet) before turning soft and sweet. 20. Black Mulberry. A large stately tree that will grow to form gnarled branches and a distinctive form. The fruit is delicious and almost never commercially available. Said to have been introduced in the 16th Century in the mistaken belief that black mulberries harbour silk worms. (In fact silk worms live on white mulberry trees.)
