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Green Impact At Kent University
It’s not easy being green, and we are all a bit guilty when it comes to the business of our environmental and ethical impact. Not reading the instructions for the photocopier, using plastic cups and buying non-Fair-trade products are just a few minor factors which contribute to the big, ugly reality of climate change and unfair trade.
Fortunately however, the new Green Impact project makes it that bit easier. Already piloted at Bristol University last year (with excellent results), the project has been introduced to a further 25 universities this year and Kent is one of them.
This unique project focuses on ways that help departments to become greener by educating individuals on how they can implement small, simple and practical actions that make a big difference. Green Impact does this by offering advice, and by encouraging and rewarding efforts with its use of a point system. This is all to be recorded in the Workbook which is an Excel document that contains the criteria for the scheme, and it is divided into stages labelled Bronze, Silver and Bonus.
To meet the Bronze standard your department needs to meet the twenty Bronze actions in its criteria. These include things such as using only Fair-trade-certified tea and coffee during internal meetings, and putting notices by light switches to ensure people remember to turn them off. The silver criteria offers more advanced actions, such as using reusable cups and providing useful information to staff and visitors on public transport in the area. Meanwhile, the Bonus code includes actions such as encouraging staff to cycle to work and to introduce car sharing schemes.
The departments are able to go through the workbook at their own pace, focusing on areas of interest to them and completing as much or as little of the criteria as they choose. The more actions completed by a department the more points are scored, leading to Bronze, Silver, Bonus awards. But staff, be warned, it is a student led audit who confirm that any improvements have indeed been made!
So far, Kent has gathered fifteen departments who will be taking part in this scheme, which includes around 650 members of staff. Workbooks have been sent out and changes are already being made in offices across the campus. Records of achievements among our departments are to be kept for two years, with the results of the first year being a level to improve upon in the second. However, the duration is very much up to the team, because it depends on how much you put in and how much you need to change in the first place.
Departments already taking part are:
· Information services
· Engineering and Digital Arts
· Housekeeping
· Kent Business School
· Accommodation & Hospitality
· Catering (Origins)
· Anthropology
· UELT
· Admissions and Partnership services
· Sports Centre
· Gulbenkian Theatre
· Gillingham and Medway buildings
· Estates
· Research Services
· Biosciences
This project is open to any department, regardless of size, location or function. Anyone can lead the staff team (the person responsible for submitting the workbook) and if preferred, a number of people can fulfil this post in a single team. It isn’t even exclusive to just staff – students can get on board too. The more people recruited the better, because greater numbers equate to greater scores and greater rewards.
It is also a great means of bringing individuals together with this common aim and it allows us to become a part of something bigger, because we’re just one of many universities taking part across the country. Although it is run locally at the University it is managed by the EAUC (Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges) which is, in turn, part of the wider NUS-led Degrees Cooler Programme. It’s free too, because it is government funded.
This innovative scheme provides a framework with which the departments can become, and continue to become, greener. Awareness and skills on going green, resource efficiency and better tea in meetings are just a number of things our departments can hope to gain from taking part. Although it will take a lot to tackle climate change in the grand scheme of things, it is small steps such as these that make the biggest difference.