Submitted by Peter Lumb on Wed, 2019-12-18 17:04
The University of Cambridge is delighted to have its Engage for Change programme Highly Commended at the 15th Green Gown Awards. The Awards recognise the innovative and inspiring sustainability work taking place in universities and colleges to create a brighter future for their students. Over 360 guests from the UK’s further education and higher education institutions attended the Awards Ceremony on Tuesday 26 November. The event was held in Glasgow which has committed to becoming the first net-zero city in the UK and is set to host COP 26 in 2020.
Ian Patton, CEO at EAUC (the Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education), said:
“The Green Gown Awards celebrate the very pinnacle of best practice in a sector that is well ahead of the curve on the sustainability agenda. The submissions this year were of an incredibly high calibre, tackling a huge array of sustainable development areas. It was a hard process to pick the winners, and it involved over 90 national and international judges.”
Given the exceptionally strong field, the University is thrilled to have been Highly Commended for its approach to student engagement through Engage for Change. This six-week training programme is run by Cambridge Hub with the support of the Environment and Energy Section. Students start by developing their engagement and advocacy skills before using these skills to design and trial sustainability interventions within their College or department. Projects have tackled topics such as food, energy, waste and much more. Engage for Change has fostered a collaborative community of young environmental leaders who are knowledgeable in creating change, resourceful in project implementation, and who support each other in making those changes.
In the words of the judges, Engage for Change is “a brilliant programme that clearly makes a difference from significant impact statistics to action in the real world. It’s refreshing to see a programme that focuses on personal resilience.”
The programme is continuing to run in Lent 2020, and applications are open until 12 noon, 23 January so if you are a current student or post-doc at the University then visit the Engage for Change webpage for details on how to get involved.