Sustainability – the student experience

Ruth BushStudent Footprints Project Officer

Drivers for NUS: - Carbon reduction- Skills / student employability- Building community bridges- Links to curriculum

Student Unions: Sound Impact• All easy practical actions: Bronze, silver – addressing common bad practice Bonus criteria – sharing good practice

• It’s a framework, bite sized chunks• It’s also a race to the top!

• Really successful. • Empowering student leaders.

Figure 2: Green Impact score distribution by issue 2008/09

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DorothyHodgkinBuilding

Total marksavailable

www.nus.org.uk/hallstudy

1) Awareness resources - Durham2) Champions - Leeds3) Comparative and competitive - Bradford4) A green hall / university - UCLAN5) Financial - UWE

Degrees cooler• Defra funded, England only• 20 HEIs, 90,000 people• 850k project• Three projects:

- Green Impact- Student Switch Off- Going Greener

• Greener Living Assistants

www.greenerlivingfund.org.uk

Jamie Peters – Student at Strathclyde and Student Footprints Senior Carbon

Ambassador

Motivations and ambitions

• BA(Hons) in Geography• Year in Colombia & Venezuela,

studied Spanish.• Currently carrying out Postgrad at

Strathclyde – MSc Science, Technology and Sustainability.

Motivations and ambitions• Why environmental studies?• What possibilities do they hold.• Who can study environmental studies?• Where does sustainability fit into it?• Student footprints.

In 5 years time?“I think there will need to be big shifts in society as a whole which

will hopefully be reflected in the uni, such as a massive decrease in consumption of animal products, reduced energy usage and microgeneration of energy and hopefully staff (all - not just those at the bottom who already have the most work to do) will be actively involved in this at uni and in their home lives. Hopefully the university will start to feel more like a sustainable community! The University is also in a good position to make a head start on sustainability rather than just adapting, and can produce information booklets for staff and students, and the wider Sheffield and UK community, about all aspects of sustainability.”

Student perspective, Sheffield University