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World Development Movement Seminar on Food Speculation Review

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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.

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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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The Sun is Shining on the University of Greenwich

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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

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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

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Guest Blog: Recycling Helping Alleviate Student Hardship

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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.

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New Orchard at Avery Hill

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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.)

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Medway Campus Green Impact Collaboration

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On Thursday the University of Greenwich teamed up with the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University to bring the efforts of the three universities together in implementing the Green Impact workbook at the Medway Campus. All three universities are taking part in the NUS Green Impact project and are working on three variations of the Green Impact workbook, which sets out tasks for improving the office or department you are working in. The project includes regular workshops which are run at each campus but rather than three different people running three different workshops for three different sets of sustainability champions we decided to bring the whole lot together in one big Medway Green Impact workshop.


Emily Crockford from Kent and Lucy Brown from Canterbury Christ Church lead a group task in the workshop.

 The workshop was focussed around introducing the concept of the Green Impact workbook to those that were new to the project and demonstrating what will be expected of the champions when they come to present their evidence during the auditing process. On top of the more regular parts of the workshop we had an exciting opportunity to demonstrate the crossover work, collective targets and opportunity for collaboration between the three universities.
Sustainability Champions from Greenwich, Kent and Canterbury Universities working together at Medway

The Medway collaboration will give sustainability champions a chance to share their work and ideas between all three universities and give everyone a chance to benefit from examples of best practice and the experiences of a wider pool of sustainability champions. At the same time the three respective sustainability teams implementing the Green Impact project at their campuses are benefiting from sharing ideas and resources for putting together the workshops and activities for Green Impact but are also able to discuss implementing sustainability on a wider reaching level across the three different universities. We are expecting this to be the start of a long and happy partnership between the three universities and a great opportunity for all involved to share the workload and push forward in implementing the Green Impact project.

Either side of the Green Impact workshop at the Medway Campus John Bailey was moonlighting as a guest lecturer for the civil engineers. After attending the ‘Sustainability Induction’ staff development workshop Deborah Sims, a senior lecturer in Civil Engineering decided that her students would benefit from seeing how the university is implementing sustainability on a practical level to go hand in hand with the theory the engineers are already learning. Thus she invited John to come to Medway and talk to two sets of engineering students that she teaches. The lectures gave the students an overview of some of the global challenges around population growth and resource use followed by a focussed insight on what these challenges mean to the university, how the university is responding to these challenges and what we can all do on a personal level.
http://www.slideshare.net/JohnBailey3/1111-sust-inductionengineersfinal
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Bigger, Better but with a Smaller Footprint…..

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Green Impact II: The Sequel

Tuesday saw the launch of the second year of the University’s Green Impact project and Sustainability Champions Network. The project brings together sustainability champions from nearly every department within the University to complete a workbook-full of tasks set to improve the University’s environmental performance.

John tries to explain how much bigger the new workbook is

There are a lot of new sustainability champions joining the network this year bringing the total number of staff members implementing the Green Impact workbook to over 40. The champions will be trying to earn their department either Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum awards before they hand the workbooks in before Easter next year. Joining the various schools and offices in the University taking part in the scheme will also be Hadlow College – one of the University’s partner colleges that is working to reduce their carbon footprint and looking for new initiatives to do this. Sue Brimlow the college’s Sustainability Manager joined us for the event to find out what they could gain from working with Greenwich on implementing Green Impact workbook at Hadlow.

Kat Thorne – Head of Sustainability for the University kicked of proceedings by giving us an overview of sustainability at the University and how the global issues of population growth and increased demand on resources are impacting on the university. This was followed by highlighting some of the key areas of the Sustainability Policy and how the University was implementing them plus emphasising some of the key areas the Sustainability Team will be working on over the next 12 months.

Following Kat was David Young, one of the sustainability champions for IT at the Greenwich campus and self-titled ‘University of Greenwich Quiz Master’ – who’d put together an interactive quiz (Who Wants to be a Millionaire style) just to make sure the sustainability champions were listening to Kat’s speech. Despite a few iffy answers we are pleased to announce that the vast majority got the answers correct. Following the quiz John Bailey the Sustainability Projects Officer for the University went on to explain a few of the ins and outs of how the sustainability champions network works and how the new champions could expect to be communicating the sustainability message across the university.

Charlotte Taylor followed up giving us a national perspective on the NUS Green Impact scheme and showed how it had grown from being a pilot project at Bristol University to being taken up by 48 different universities for this academic year. At the University of Greenwich the sustainability champions completed 561 tasks through the Green Impact scheme and this fantastic number is being repeated all around the country with nearly 4,000 people directly involved and 19,620 tasks completed across the 35 universities that took part last year! That’s a great achievement and just goes to show how we are not alone fighting the sustainability corner but part of a much larger positive movement taking place nationwide!

Neil demonstrates a hire bike Brompton folding away

As well as Neil Garrod giving the champions a sneak preview of the University’s proposed Brompton bike hire scheme (complete with a slick demonstration of how to fold a Brompton bike as if trained by Mr. Brompton himself) he talked about how he’d recently gone back to look at the book on ‘nudge theory’ after recently surfacing on the government’s agenda. He mentioned how the nudge theory applied to the work that the champions are doing across the University and would be key to successfully embedding the behaviour change that is needed in order for the University to achieve its sustainability goals.

Neil has been championing sustainability for over 20 years and cited an example about being viewed as a lone nut while working at a previous university where he tried to bring sustainability onto the agenda through the medium of recycled toilet paper. Neil has seen a change in the support from senior management at the University of Greenwich; he used to be the only one championing sustainability with others claiming that sustainability was not a priority. He now finds himself in the opposite situation with those who used to claim that sustainability is not a priority now championing sustainability themselves. The University’s high score in the People and Planet Green League and the potential savings shown in the carbon management plan have swayed the senior managers and explained to the sustainability champions that they need to understand what sustainability means to those they work with and appeal to their colleagues’ individual agendas. 

Graeme Collie explains the culinary delights on offer

After the morning’s speeches and presentations we were delighted with a sustainable hospitality menu from the university’s caterers ABM Catering. Graeme Collie from ABM explained how the menu had made best use of local, seasonal, organic and free-range or high welfare ingredients and that they were work
ing towards achieving a Silver Food for Life Award after implementing so many positive changes to the menus.

John Bisbrown explaining the results from the first workshop

Sustainability champions discussing some of the challenges ahead

The afternoon was packed full of workshops focused on challenging areas in the workbook and gave the champions a chance to work together to find a practical and pragmatic way of implementing some of the tasks. There was a strong focus on communication – as ever with sustainability – half the task is in how you communicate to your colleagues and win them over to the new practices and behaviours you are trying to implement. Positivity is a key message and focus for sustainability communications and is often far more effective than pedalling the doom and gloom stories. The Green Impact project and the Sustainability Policy and strategy are starting the move towards creating a more efficient university that creates a net positive impact. We finished the workshops with a great video from TED on how to start a movement in less than three minutes and how ‘a lone nut can become a leader’.

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

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Breaking Ground at our Community Garden and Gearing up for the Orchard Planting

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Today the Sustainability Team joined forces with the School of Architecture, James Hallybone and Tom Barnsley from Roundfield and Michael Unsworth from the Grounds team to break ground at the site for our new community garden. We haven’t quite started to dig to plant yet but we have dug one meter below the surface to inspect the soil and get an idea of what the quality is like.

Ducan Goodwin gets into the hole to investigate the soil

So what’s it like then I hear you cry? Well, just below the surface there is a fair bit of rubble – not too much though, then after that there’s some well drained soil a few pebbles and gravel and then the clay. The School of Architecture first year garden design student will returning to the site to do some more robust testing over the coming weeks but certainly the first look is positive. The soil may not be of an award winning standard it is certainly good enough that we can get a bit of compost mixed in and start digging and planting when the time is right.

Looking at the different layers in soil

We are now looking for students, staff members and locals who are interested in getting their hands dirty and getting involved with either the design, building of, maintenance and growing in the garden. If you are interested please email: sustainability@greenwich.ac.uk

Sticking with the theme of growing your own, we are just one month away from our orchard planting at the Avery Hill Campus. On the 1st December this year we will be planting 20 trees including ten varieties of apple, three varieties of pear, two plum trees, two cherry trees, a damson, a medlar and a mulberry tree. The orchard will need staff and students to adopt a tree for watering, pruning and a little bit of care, particularly for the first two years. Not to worry if you don’t have any experience in managing orchards for the London Orchard Project will be offering a training session telling you exactly how to look after a tree through its early years. Once again if you want to be involved in the planting of and adoption of one of our trees please email us at: sustainability@greenwich.ac.uk

Seeing as its Halloween this Monday we have a few little interesting links that we’ve noticed come up today. Firstly over at Planet Pals they have a nearly endless supply of ideas for a green Halloween: http://planetpals.com/green-halloween and Creations by Kara have come up with a great way of recycling an old book into a pumpkin that you will be ablt to use year after year: http://www.creationsbykara.com/2011/09/book-page-pumpkin-tutorial.html

Creation by Kara: Pumpkin book

P.S. Don’t forget to turn the bottles of sloe gin you made last week!

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Sloes and Carbon 2.0 Can London Lead the Low carbon Revolution?

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This week the Sustainability Team celebrated the arrival of winter and the first frosts in London by using our lunch breaks to harvest hundreds of sloes from the countless bushes spread across Avery Hill Campus. Sloes are the berries found on the Prunus spinosa or blackthorn bush – a common shrub or small tree found in hedgerows all across the United Kingdom and are abundant among the rosehips (Rosaceae), hawthorns (Crataegus) and snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus) hedges at Avery Hill.

Avery Hill Sloes Picked on Monday

With the sloes we have been busy making sloe gin, a liqueur that is made by mixing the berries, sugar and gin. This year Nigel Slater’s recipe is the one being followed:

“Prick your sloes, about 450g, with a needle or freeze them and bash with a heavy weight. Tip them into sterilised bottles, the fruit coming a third of the way up. Divide 350g of caster or granulated sugar among them then top up with gin or vodka. It will take about 750ml. There is little point in using an expensive brand, by the way. Place the sealed bottles somewhere cool and dark. Leave for 8-10 weeks, turning the bottle occasionally, giving it a shake every week.” (taken from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/10/nigel-slater-classic-sloe-gin-recipe)

It is best to avoid the recipes that start with, “buy a bottle of gin, drink half….”

As well as picking sloes the Sustainability Team has been gallivanting around central London. On Wednesday evening we headed to London’s City Hall for the event ‘Carbon 2.0: Can London lead the low-carbon revolution?’ The event was put together by Carbon Culture, an organisation that tries to marry up the technical and cultural approaches to embedding sustainability in an organisation. Carbon Culture’s most famous work is the real-time energy monitoring for the Department for Energy and Climate Change that we have mentioned on this blog before: http://greengreenwich.blogspot.com/2011/09/carbon-management-plan-update.html.

View from the top of City Hall: Tower Bridge with Canary Wharf in the background.

The panel was debating the title question and taking questions from the floor that was made up from staff of universities, councils, airports, financial Institutions, construction companies, charities, theatres and a whole host of sustainability minded professionals from the public and private sector. While the overriding feeling at the event was positive and the panel seemed to genuinely believe London (and perhaps more specifically intelligent design) could bring about the low-carbon revolution there were also a lot of quite challenging questions.

– How do you cater for a global middle class that will have 3 billion more people?
– How can you join use technology to influence behaviour?
– What future is there for consumerism?
– How do you make loft insulation sexy?

Phwoarr! Check out that loft-insulation!

The questions are intrinsically linked and if you can find an answer you also provide an answer for a lot of other questions regarding the world of sustainability. Luke Nicholson from Carbon Culture was keen to push the idea that you need to make your sustainable solution/product appealing to the end user. If you can give someone what they want, they will use it and it is only once they are already engaged with it that you add the ‘sustainability story’. As long as the popular products and practices of the future are low carbon then you are already on the way towards a sustainable future effectively by ‘tricking’ people into sustainable practices. By answering the last of the four questions you can perhaps see how this might work – instead of selling loft insulation as a great way of saving money and cutting carbon emissions, sell it as a way of making your home warmer, more cosy, a more desirable place to live and for friends to visit and stay. This is a well known method for communicating sustainability and Futerra’s ‘Sell the Sizzle’ is the sustainability communicator’s bible: http://www.futerra.co.uk/downloads/Sellthesizzle.pdf.

As for the future of consumerism, well we have already decided everyone will be buying into great technologies that are not only appealing but also more sustainable – but how do you cater for the extra billions of people projected to be living on the planet over the next decades when you have limited resources to go round? Mat Hunter from the Design Council suggested making London a ‘shareable city’ a place where ‘collaborative consumption’ is the order of the day. Instead of everyone owning a car people will be members of car clubs like StreetCar or ZipCar, instead of owning a bike people will use the ‘Boris Bikes’. Mat Hunter was particularly positive that London could lead in this way because the city is ‘a densely packed vast Petri dish with a concentrated group of highly intelligent people.’ High praise indeed for London.