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Sustainability

At last month’s University of Cambridge Green Challenge awards, a number of teams of staff and students were rewarded for their work to improve the environmental performance of their places of work and study. While the majority of teams had spent the year focusing on a ‘workbook’ of sustainability actions set out by the University’s Environment and Energy section, four teams who had previously won a ‘Gold’ award opted to devise sustainability projects of their own design. The result was some really innovative ideas to tackle sustainability challenges. Read on to find out what happened!

Clare College

Clare College carried out a project to map biodiversity on the College grounds and communicate this widely. Initially, the College used ‘360 degree videos’, a form of video recording which takes in all of the surroundings of a given point, to record a number of key habitats on the estate. This information was all collated and is now displayed on an interactive website, which is being used to raise awareness of the characteristics of key habitats of importance to the local ecosystem. The College successfully engaged multiple partners and stakeholders in the project, including College staff and students but also the Backs Landscape Committee, the College alumni office, and the wider community. The website for the project can be visited at https://www.biodivirtual.com

Clare

 

The University Counselling Service

The University Counselling Service undertook an initiative involving setting up a whole new recycling service. The team identified that empty, broken or unwanted pens and other writing instruments could not be recycled through the University mixed recycling bins, and found that the department were producing a relatively large amount due to the nature of their work. Keen to tackle this problem, they set out to find a suitable solution. Having identified a company called ‘Terracycle’ who recycle pens, the team initially worked to raise awareness among teams within their own building that pens could be recycled, and set a target for recycling over 1000 writing instruments, with the proceeds from the recycling going to a local counselling charity: Centre33. Not happy resting on their laurels, the team then worked to expand the recycling initiative more widely. One barrier was having suitable collection receptacles for pens. The team entered an application for funding from the National Union of Students (who run Green Impact nationally), and were successful in gaining funding for a number of pen recycling bins. A series of 28 drop-off points in other University departments and colleges were therefore set up, allowing staff and students to recycle their pens. The project has meant that a valuable resource is being recycled into new products, all while raising money for charity – a double win! 

Counselling service

Modern and Medieval Languages

Modern & Medieval Languages had made much progress in addressing their environmental impact in recent years, spearheaded by their Environment and Energy Coordinator Nan Taplin. With Nan’s retirement at the end of 2016, the Faculty were keen to build on their own good performance, so wondered about expanding their impact into the community. Looking beyond their own four walls, the team soon identified a nearby local primary school and made contact with a teacher who had a keenness for environmental sustainability. Working jointly, the team identified a project that would engage both staff in MML, as well as students at the school, in environmental issues. Initially the team came up with an idea to practically engage with the children by hosting a field trip to the department’s Sidgwick Site. The children were encouraged to think of ways to boost the fauna and flora on the site. Much discussion and debate led to the children creating a series of green ‘site plans’ for the Sidgwick Site, with a host of fantastic and detailed plans aimed at helping specific plants or animals, such as bees. The plans are being taken to Estates Management to see if funding can be sought to put in place some of the ideas. The team didn’t stop there though. A second aim of the project was to hold a competition for students to design environmental awareness posters which could be used in the department. The students were briefed to develop posters which tackled an environmental issue, but had an element of languages other than English to tie in with the ethos of the Faculty. The entries were put out to a public vote among all academic, student, and assistant staff in the department, with the winning students presented with a prize by MML staff in a special assembly! The MML team’s bold project was the first of its kind in engaging with the local community, and has been a great experience for all involved. 

MML

MRC Epidemiology

MRC Epidemiology took an ambitious and technical approach to their project. After looking at the main environmental impacts of the department, one of the main areas which was highlighted was energy use by IT equipment. After setting out a goal to reduce the carbon footprint of IT Infrastructure in the unit, two different sub-projects were identified. Both involved the department’s ‘Green Impact Group’ working closely with the IT department and Senior Management in the department. The first element of the project involved replacing the physical private computer network, an energy inefficient system which also forced staff to travel between sites. This involved a large amount of work to initiate a tendering process, secure capital and negotiate with the suppliers, while also ensuring that staff were engaged about the changes through a survey and presentation. The process was quite long, including dealing with a lengthy and bureaucratically intense tendering process, negotiation with suppliers, securing additional funding, and delivery of the equipment. However, once ‘live’ the project came with the unexpected benefit of facilitating greater flexibility in seating allocation. The second element of the project involved replacing all the departments’ desktop printers with ‘multi-function devices’. Many challenges were also met along the way with this element of the project, including the need for a new power connection which had to be delivered by the department’s PFI supplier. However the department are happy with the results of the project. The calculations show that it has been extremely cost effective, saving over 2 pence per print. This means that even if only 50% of printing is sent to the new printers, the project will payback back in 3 years! The project has also led to the introduction of printing by “pin” codes, enhancing security and preventing forgotten printing from ending up in the waste paper basket. As the department’s work focuses on public health, it’s also encouraged staff to walk from their desk to collect printing, adding a little bit of exercise to the office day!

MRC

Well done to all this year’s Excellence winners! We’ll be encouraging more successful Green Impact teams who took part at a Gold level this year to undertake an Excellence project in 2017/18. There will be a workshop for those who might be interested on 7 September – get in touch if you’d like to be involved!