Your union…and the carbon academy
Students’ unions across the country have been taking advantage of the Carbon Academy – the NUS Services-run environmental training scheme. Officeronline asked those that have made the first step towards reducing their footprint, what they thought about applying for the Academy and what they’ve already done to go green.
“The University of Cumbria students’ union is a brand new union, created in August 2007, and we want to move towards creating a more environmentally friendly SU. At our union council (28 January 2008) we proposed a motion to have a full voting environmental officer on the campus committees at all sites. This was accepted so we are now looking into roles descriptions, etc so that we can introduce this new position into our by-elections.
"In the SU we have been recycling all of our old posters and any paper, cardboard and other materials that we no longer need to use. When leaving the offices we have been making a conscious effort to turn off all lights and have been shutting down computers instead of keeping them on standby.
"All the campuses are currently spending time working on environmental issues and are trying to get the University to be more environmentally friendly by running a ‘Go Green’ Campaign. We are also currently looking at introducing an environmental officer to the campus committees on each site who will be committed to looking at a range of environmental issues.
Kati Brown, Penrith Vice President, University of Cumbria students' union. UCSU represents 14,000 students.
“We heard about the Academy via an email advertisement from NUS. We're extremely involved in environmental issues and are constantly trying to improve our environmental performance. The carbon ambassador scheme seemed a really good opportunity to see if there are any areas where we could improve that perhaps we hadn't yet paid much attention to. Hopefully we'll get some ideas out of it that hadn't occurred to us before.
“Our biggest problem is that there aren't any plastic recycling facilities in our county. Even though we use a private waste contractor they use the same facilities. Therefore we simply cannot recycle plastics. This is especially annoying as we are forced to use plastic glasses and bottles for our events due to health and safety considerations. As you can imagine we get through an awful amount of plastic and have to throw it into the general waste where it gets sent to landfill. We also have a rather unique 1960s building that is extremely energy inefficient.
"The costs of upgrading it would be prohibitive and in many cases we simply would not be able to do anything. It would be brilliant to have some form of micro-generation to produce some of own electricity but we would never get planning permission as we are in the shadow of Durham Cathedral; a world heritage site! University apathy is not a problem but student apathy sometimes can be. Students are generally quite keen on recycling for example but getting them involved in actually setting it up can be difficult!”
Anthony Crowther, Environmental Officer, Durham students’ union. DSU represents 15,000 students.
“We’ve done a lot of work to improve our carbon footprint through the Sound Impact scheme, we won a bronze in last year’s awards, but we are expecting [the ambassadors] to find that there is still a lot more to do. The biggest problem we have is that the building is old and all the heating and lighting systems are old and inefficient but we don’t have the money to invest in improving them.
“We recycle all our glass, cardboard and paper. Staff and officers are reminded to turn off lights and monitors etc at the end of the day. We’ve changed as many light bulbs as possible to more environmentally friendly ones. We’ve written an Ethical and Environmental policy which is hopefully going to be approved shortly by Union Council. We’ve taken paper towel dispensers out of the toilets and replaced them with roller towels. Staff and officers are encouraged through the expenses policy to use public transport as opposed to driving and to not use air travel unless absolutely necessary. the York bike recycling scheme regularly comes to the SU to sell re-conditioned bikes to staff and students.”
Luke Hogarth, President, York St John Students' Union. YSJSU represents 5,700 students.
“We signed up to the Academy as it's an opportunity for the union to further reduce its carbon footprint and also educate students and staff at the same time. Uninterested people could be one of the biggest issues we have. There's so much going on that it doesn't always feature at the top of everyone's agenda. We'll be working hard to raise awareness and to try and push this up people's agendas.”
Matt Burton, Services and Finance Officer, University of York Students' Union. YUSU represents 11,000 students.
“This kind of service is amazing, please continue to expand and build on it.”
Andrew Taylor, Finance Officer, Union of UEA Students. UUEA represents 14,000 students.
For more information on the Academy visit Strong and Active.
Return to this campaign's homepage or view all articles in this campaign.