The efforts of the Geography Department to promote sustainable practices within the staff and student community have been recognised by a national environmental awards scheme.
Members of the department worked together to champion energy saving, efficiency and waste reduction, earning them a Silver Green Impact Award: the second highest accreditation available.
On 5 July 2016 an awards ceremony was held by King’s Sustainability in celebration of the achievements from teams all over the university. Around 75 attendees came to celebrate their green successes.
The achievements of the Geography Department build on their success as winners of the Bronze Award in 2014-15. This year, Geography were one 13 office teams to receive awards.
Green Impact is an environmental accreditation scheme lead by the NUS which encourages organisations to across the country to embed sustainability into the workplace. Bronze, Silver and Gold level awards are granted according to a number of criteria.
Principal Ed Bryne gave a congratulatory speech in honour of the hard work of the 28 teams of Sustainability Champions across the university.
Department Manager, Katharine Silk, Tom Smith, Charlie Smith and Kelly Gunnell represented the department on the night, picking up the Award on behalf of the department’s team of Sustainability Champions.
Throughout the academic year, the team have worked passionately to promote sustainable practices within the department. Achieving the Silver accreditation required the department to introduce a number of initiatives including internal energy audits, reducing departmental printing, promoting ‘green ideas’, and encouraging colleagues to have no personal heaters, printers and fridges.
Posters coloured noticeboards around the department, communications were sent out to staff and messages were spread on social media platforms.
Geography was the first academic department to participate in the award last summer and were praised for their efforts, in particular the pioneering ‘ban the bottle’ campaign.
Read more about the Green Impact scheme on our Geography Blog
With special thanks to PhD student Kelly Gunnell for leading the team and all of the Sustainability Champions from the Department of Geography.
By Joanna Peasland, Second Year Geography undergraduate student.