Today the Sustainability Team ventured up to the Mansion Site of Avery Hill to meet with Robert Holden and the Garden and Landscape Design staff at the School of Architecture and Construction. The topic under discussion was the plans for building a University community food garden. The project will be collaboration between the three schools at Avery Hill (Architecture, Education and Health) and staff and students who work and live on the campus to create a space where they can grow fruit, vegetables, herbs, salads and whole manner of delicious treats.
Statue in the Winter Gardens at Avery Hill Mansion Site
With assistance and advice from Capital Growth and the Greenwich Co-Operative Development Agency the plans are afoot to create a space that will not only provide food but could also double up as an outdoor learning space, social area and a sensory and medicinal garden. Using inspiration from the ideas of permaculture design we are hoping to reuse and upcycle a number of items located around the campus including tyres, pallets and an unused gazebo.
The garden will be set-up on the Southwood Site, just south of the sports hall which is also where the university is planning on planting an orchard later this year. The orchard is being designed by the London Orchard Project who are trying to create a ‘fruit tree revolution’ in London by promoting the virtues of home grown fruit and planting new community orchards all across the capital. We have earmarked the 1st December as the day to start the tree planting and will be hoping to round up a good few staff and students to get stuck in and involved with the planting.
When the orchard is planted it will not be the only source of fruit on campus as the sustainability team has discovered over the past 18 months there is already a lot of fruit hidden away in the nooks and crannies of Avery Hill. Exploring the campus you can find mulberries, blackberries, crab apples, sloes, quince, damsons, plums and as we discovered today even grapes!
Greedy Green Gnome’s Greenwich Green Grapes
The other discovery of the day – and almost as exciting as the grapes – was the website wordle.net. This website converts a body of text into a graphically delightful jumble of multi coloured words. Just look at what it has done to the University’s Sustainability Targets.
You may have noticed the 2011 Tour de France underway over the last few weeks but here at Greenwich there’s been a big old collective cycle taking part in the form of the TFL Cycle Challenge. The challenge is now over and the University of Greenwich team has clocked up an impressive 8,454 miles! This is the equivalent of burning 422,700 calories or 1,409 cupcakes and an estimated carbon dioxide saving of 4.227 tonnes.
There were some outstanding individual efforts but all 40 members of staff who logged their miles can be proud to have made a significant contribution to the total score and amassing an average of 211 miles per person! In the 11-50 members category the University of Greenwich finished in 11th position out of 152 teams. Barclays took the top prize in the category with a rather impressive 15,278 miles, quite a feat but I’m sure they will feel the force of the University of Greenwich breathing down their neck next year.
The top ten riders in the University of Greenwich team were:
1st Yellow Jersey (General Classification) Winner: Matt Prichard from CMS – 672 miles 2nd Green Jersey (Sprint Points) Winner: Tom Barnes Deputy Vice Chancellor – 604 miles 3rd Polka-dot Jersey (Queen of the Mountains) winner: Kat Thorne from Sustainability – 573 miles 4th White Jersey (Best young rider!) winner: Neil Garrod Deputy Vice Chancellor – 512 miles 5th: John Bailey from Sustainability – 503 miles 6th: Simon Charlesworth from Accommodation -477 miles 7th: Simon Walker from the EDU – 384 miles 8th: Adele Brooks from FM – 347 miles 9th: Justine Cooper from Architecture & Construction – 337 miles 10th: Gesche Heubner from Architecture & Construction – 309 miles
Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race. – H. G. Wells
Today the University of Greenwich Sustainability Champions ended up on the Guardian Higher Education Network. In a blog post written by the University’s Sustainable Projects Officer, John Bailey writes about some of the fantastic tasks completed by the champions and the impact they have had in influencing change at the University.
Tuesday saw the University of Greenwich celebrate its first annual Sustainability Awards. To celebrate the progress the University has made over that last 12 months an esteemed selection of 45 people chosen for their contribution to the University’s sustainability effort were invited to Hamilton House for the event.
The event gets under way in Hamilton House
Neil Garrod lauds the efforts of the attendees in their contribution to sustainability at the University
On the agenda were speeches from the Sustainability Team, Charlotte Bonner from NUS green Impact Team, Neil Garrod Deputy Vice Chancellor for Resources and a presentation on ‘local food’ from Dr Howard Lee from Hadlow College. The main thrust of the speeches was angled towards the positive changes that had occurred at the University over the last 12 months and celebrating the impact that the people in the room had in helping bring about these positive changes.
A large part of the event was based around the achievements of the sustainability champions and to award them certificates and prizes for the work they had been doing on the Green Impact workbook. The workbook which had 22 tasks to complete for the bronze award, 15 for silver and 65 bonus tasks was attempted by all the sustainability champions. Since we launched the workbook an astonishing 561 tasks towards improving the University’s sustainability performance have been undertaken by the champions and their departments. These 561 completed tasks are the result of the hard work and determination of our sustainability champions, who have had to persuade, change and influence their colleagues and peers since the workbook was launched in October last year.
Overall 23 schools and departments achieved the bronze award, 1 achieved the silver and in turn won the gold award for the department that completed the most tasks. The golden department was the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), led by Caroline Troy, which completed a whopping 61 tasks in total. It might not be surprising that the NRI is leading the way with sustainability at Greenwich when sustainable development is at the heart of the NRI’s mission statement.
“Our mission is to provide distinctive, high quality and relevant research, consultancy, learning and advice in support of sustainable development, economic growth and poverty reduction.”
Caroline Troy receives her prize for bronze, silver and gold award in the Green Impact workbook.
Along with the awards to the sustainability champions there were a few special awards going around for people who had put in a particularly strong effort towards sustainability at the University. Ian Cakebread and Tony Dodson won an award for their excellent bicycle powered generators built for Green Week, Pru Jones received an award for her efforts towards recycling at the Medway campus (often as high as 70%), ABM Catering won an award for their move towards sustainable menus and Sustain won an award for their contribution to the Sustainable Food Policy.
There was one particularly special award being handed out which was the Sustainability Hero Award complete with FA Cup style trophy, courtesy of Glasdon UK, which went to Mary McCartney from the Business School. Mary won the award for the extra effort she put in over the year towards sustainability. As the only champion in the Business School she has helped get sustainability to the top of the agenda within the school which is now developing more programmes, employing more lecturers and more researchers with sustainability at the heart of what they do. On top of this Mary managed to get the 2nd highest number of tasks done in the Green Impact workbook and fully deserves the award for 2011.
Neil Garrod awards the Sustainability Hero trophy to Mary McCartney
All the sustainability champions with their prizes
Following the awards everyone headed to Greenwich Park to enjoy a Sustainability Picnic laid on by ABM Catering. The menu was designed to showcase the best of the food on offer from the south east of England that we have available at the University. The menu included local cheeses, University of Greenwich home baked bread, cakes and scones and a selection of locally grown fruits.
Today the University of Greenwich rose to 5th in the People & Planet Green League table and was awarded a 1st Class award for its efforts over the last 12 months.
See the story on the Guardian website here and in the education section of today’s (7th June) paper.
We are absolutely delighted with the result which has seen us rise from 103rd in 2009 and 61st in 2010 to our current position. We would like to thank everyone at the University who has been supportive of our work, who have been involved with the various projects and who make working at the University of Greenwich a real pleasure! Without everyone’s support and enthusiasm towards improving the University’s sustainability performance we wouldn’t have been able to make such a climb up the table.
Although today is a day for celebrating the achievements we have made we are keen to make sure that next year we are doing even more. There are still plenty more opportunities for the University to tackle issues of sustainability over the next 12 months and we are determined not to rest on our laurels and continue to push the sustainability agenda forward.
The People & Planet Green League 2011 reveals the environmental and ethical performance of 142 universities, awarding First Class ‘degrees’ to the best and Fail to those doing the least to address their impacts.
Nottingham Trent University takes the top spot this year and also in the top 5 with Greenwich are the universities of Gloucestershire, Worcester, Plymouth and Bournemouth (with whom we are tied for 5th place). We managed to obtain a score 47 points out of a possible 70, so despite our high league table finish there is still plenty more to be done.
The People & Planet website has a full breakdown of the scores and demonstrates the areas where Greenwich is doing well and the areas we need to improve on.
The results show major improvements across the higher education sector in 12 out of the 13 criteria used to rank universities and measure their transition to a fair & sustainable future – including:
• 8.3% increase in universities generating their own renewable energy on-site • 57% of sector has put in place strong Carbon Management plans and climate targets • 10% increase in energy-saving & recycling initiatives for students in halls of residence • 10% increase in universities publishing Sustainable Food policies • 20% increase in universities employing at least one Sustainability Manager • 68% of universities have now achieved Fairtrade status
Louise Hazan, who compiled People & Planet’s Green League 2011, said:
“This year’s results show the sector is making a clear transition towards low-carbon, sustainable operations and responding to increasing student demand for greener universities that offer value for money. However, despite clear progress in the last year on issues such as carbon management planning and student engagement, the fact that carbon emissions are still rising should sound alarm bells for Vice-Chancellors and the Government alike”.
Hello! The Green Gnome has asked me to use this blog to introduce myself – my name is Abbie and I’m the new(ish)Sustainable Procurement Officer at the University!
I started a few weeks ago after being given just one weekend notice between my interview and my first day! Since then it’s been a bit chaotic – trying to understand the University’s complex procurement processes and work out how to most effectively communicate sustainable procurement to the hundreds of people that are involved in procurement decisions across all three campuses, as well as the thousands of companies supplying the University. I’m based in the Procurement & Business Services department which means that as well as successfully embedding sustainable procurement (fingers crossed!) I can constantly annoy colleagues about one-sided printing and lights being left on – brilliant! At the moment I’m finalising our first Sustainable Procurement Policy & Strategy so have a look out for that on our Procurement & Business Services webpages soon.
Before joining the University of Greenwich on this temporary contract I worked at a corporate social responsibility (CSR) consultancy. I was involved in dozens of projects right across the spectrum of CSR and sustainability including community, employees, the environment and supply chain. In particular I was fascinated by the complexity, challenges and opportunities presented by global value chains.
City of Bath
I completed a masters in Business & Community at the University of Bath last Autumn and my dissertation was on the takeover of Cadbury Plc by Kraft last year – an excuse to do lots of research into chocolate! Aside from chocolate, my interests include being a closet twitcher (Avery Hill’s Green Woodpecker and dozens of Chaffinches being my campus favourites so far) and utilising the UK’s marvellous public transport to visit friends across the country. Last weekend I went to a Eurovision Party in sunny Bournemouth!
The University of Greenwich is one of 11 London Universities to sign up to the Sustainable Fish City campaign from Sustain.
The campaign follows on from the London 2012 Olympics stating that they will only buy fish from sustainable sources and Sustain are asking the rest of the city to get on board as well and become the first ‘Sustainable Fish City.’ The campaign sets out a number of targets to be achieved by 2012 whether you are a university or college, multi-national corporation or just an individual citizen of London there are actions you can take to help London achieve this target.
At the University of Greenwich we have been doing a lot of work to develop a wider variety of sustainable food options and an increase in the amount of sustainable fish supplied is one of the feathers in our sustainable food hat. You can find Marine Stewardship Council certified fish being served on our campuses and it is no secret that Friday fish and chips is the meal most likely to persuade the Sustainability Team down to the canteen!
2010 has been a big year for sustainability at the University of Greenwich, and looking back at what we have achieved I believe we can be proud of how we have taken the University forward.
The successes of the Sustainability Team were reflected in the People & Planet Green League which was released in April when the University of Greenwich jumped from 103rd (2009) up to 61st. Sustainability issues are moving further up the agenda within the higher education sector so it will be difficult to achieve such a large jump this year, although we are of course committed to keep improving and constantly reviewing the University’s approach to sustainability.
January 2010 saw the University of Greenwich present and approve its Sustainability Policy, which can be seen here (www.gre.ac.uk/sustainability/sustainability) and is signed off by the University’s Vice Chancellor Tessa Blackstone. The policy draws together the findings of a baseline review that was conducted to establish the University’s environmental aspects and impacts and develops a policy to deal with these. The policy was drawn together as part of the environmental management system that the University has signed up for (EcoCampus). In the summer of 2010 the University was awarded the Bronze award by EcoCampus and we hope we are just a couple of months away from achieving Silver now.
EcoCampus Bronze Award
With carbon and energy reduction becoming a key priority through the Carbon Reduction Commitment being introduced into UK law and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) introducing requirements linked to carbon reduction as part of their Capital Investment Framework (CIF2), the University has taken some significant steps towards addressing these issues. HEFCE require that each institution should have a carbon management plan submitted by March 2011 and have set a sector wide target of 43% reduction in emissions by 2020 (against a 2005/06 baseline), so many of the cogs whirring away in the Sustainability Team are working towards achieving that target.
On waste the University has seen new bins being introduced at the Greenwich Campus which are divided in two for main two waste streams that the University creates. However the recycling rate at the University varies widely from very good in some areas achieving nearly 70% recycling and the not so good where some areas are achieving no better than 30% recycling. In 2011 waste and recycling will rise up the agenda and as a result we will expect the amount of waste generated to go down along with the amount sent to landfill and the percentage of waste recycled to go up. The University ran a very successful re-use campaign at the end of the summer term in 2010 diverting would-be waste from Avery Hill halls of residences to the benefit of charities through CRISP. Internally the emergence of reusing everything and anything through the University’s own unofficial freecycle of the ‘all-staff-announce’ emails has been a great success – in fact the Sustainability team office is kitted out with many an item first offered on the internal email.
New Bins at Greenwich Campus
Food has been another area of achievement for the University, following on from 2009’s award for discontinuing the use of bottled water in hospitality. The University was awarded the Good Egg award at the Good Food on the Public Plate Awards and were celebrated for five areas of achievement, including the use of organic milk, free range eggs and MSC certified fish. On top of these achievements 2010 saw the first meeting of the Fairtrade Steering Group which includes the Students Union (SUUG), the Medway Student Association (UMSA), ABM (the main University caterers) and Sodexo (who also provide some catering on campus) who are all intent on achieving Fairtrade Status for the University.
Biodiversity has appeared on the agenda for the University in 2010 with the creation of the Biodiversity Steering Group and draft Biodiversity Action Plans have been drawn up for each of the University’s sites. 900m2 has been identified on the Avery Hill Campus for an agricultural grade pollen and nectar bee mix to be planted, which will be great news for the two hives of bees that now occupy the gardens at Southwood House. Greenwich Campus has also seen five hives introduced in 2010 into the mausoleum area, right next to where Sir Thomas Hardy (Nelson’s right hand man) is buried, and all these bees will busy pollinating come the springtime. Good news for anyone who wants to use the fruits of the campus for, blackberry and apple pie, quince jelly or sloe gin (on that note I would have to say 2010 sloe harvest produced a delicious couple of bottles!)
The Sustainability Team has experienced a lot of growth this year, even without the pollination of the bees on hand! Of course there is the very important addition to the team in the shape of the Green Gnome (yours truly) who has been prolific in his blog writing and on twitter, oh and John too, who joined the Sustainability Team in April, and has now signed up for a further 12 months with the Sustainability Team. Along with the direct additions to the team we have now swelled in influence thanks to the creation of the Sustainability Champions Network. There is now a sustainability champion in almost every department helping to promote the University’s Sustainability Policy and to promote environmentally friendly and sustainable practice within their department. To help them do this the Green Impact project has been rolled out for the first time in the University and our sustainability champions are busy implementing tasks such as setting all prin
ters in their department to print double sided, promoting the University’s green travel initiatives and implementing shutdown plans to ensure energy is not wasted over holidays and weekends.
John
Green Gnome
The sustainability champions are proving to be a key communication channel to the wider University community, and that is not the only step towards better communication we have seen. The sustainability website is soon to launch following on from the emergence of the sustainability twitter feed and of course this blog. The Sustainability Induction was introduced for new starters (and existing interested staff) and also for the new student Residential Assistants. Interserve the University’s new suppliers for portering and cleaning had to include their sustainability credentials when tendering for the cleaning contract and this is something that all our suppliers will be expected to do in the future.
New Green Cleaning products
John and Kat became more involved with LUEG, the London Universities Environmental Group, both taking up places on the group’s executive board, and hosted the LUEG AGM at Greenwich in the summer time.
Travel wise John and Kat continue to cycle to work on a daily basis and were both in the top five riders from the University that took part in the TFL London Cycle Challenge in June, Neil Garrod, Tom Barnes and Adele brooks were the other three. Overall the University clocked up more than 10,500 miles, saving around three tonnes of CO2 and burning the equivalent of over 1,500 Mars bars in calories. The University has also been successful in receiving funding from Walking Works to promote walking to, from and while at work and Simon Baldwin from Accommodation walked away with 24 mince pies as a result of winning the walking to work mince pie challenge.
Before this turns into a dissertation I shall sign off with the knowledge that I haven’t even started to tell you about the 100 or so projects identified to go into the Carbon Management Plan, the voltage optimisation units that have been installed, the Greenwich graduate attributes or about many of the other Sustainability success stories that have emerged from the University of Greenwich Sustainability Team over the course of 2010. Here’s to 2010 and to a look towards 2011 hoping that we will be even more successful over the next 12 months. Happy New Year!
