Category: Volunteering (Page 2 of 5)

Why should you become a Sustainability Champion Assistant?

August 16, 2021 /

This guest blog comes from Mason Cole, MA Politics and Contemporary History student and Sustainability Champion Assistant, supporting the King’s Energy Team.

With a new academic year approaching, you may be thinking about how you can get involved in sustainability at King’s. While many students come to university eagerly anticipating joining societies, less think about volunteering. I’ll be honest, I was one of them. When I became a Sustainability Champion Assistant (SCA), I had little idea of what it would entail. But here I am to explain why you should become an SCA for King’s Energy.

Clock volunteering hours

Did you know that at KCL you can log your volunteering hours on an online portal for an award? You could receive a bronze, silver or gold award for your efforts which is not only a personal pat on the back but would also be viewed favourably when included on your CV. It should be noted that you can mix-and-match volunteering experiences so you won’t only be reliant on King’s Energy, but over an academic year, you can easily attain a Gold award just through being a Sustainability Champion.

Learn new things

I’ll be honest, when I was allocated to King’s Energy, I whipped out the old CGP GCSE Physics revision guide to refresh my knowledge. However, prepare to be surprised. You will work with experts in the field who have extensive experience working in their field. I’ve been working with the Energy Team for 6 months, and I feel like a bonafide expert already, so you’ll be surprised how quickly and easily you will pick up information. Another thing that may surprise you is just how versatile the topic of energy is and how it links with so many different things around us.

Gain experience doing something you love

No, I don’t mean energy. We don’t expect you to love energy (although you may just fall in love with it along the way), but you likely have a skill that we are looking for. For me, that skill is writing. I love writing but it is so difficult to gain experience in a low-pressure environment. Enter King’s Energy. Whether your skill is writing, social media marketing or team management, there is a role for you here.

Make a positive impact

How could I ignore this one? As I mentioned, energy is all-encompassing, and it’s becoming an increasingly important issue in the modern world. Not only will being an SCA enable you to learn more about this crucial matter, but you will also be raising awareness and spreading that knowledge in an impartial, non-political way. In other words, you will play a vital role in the education of climate issues and, in doing so, help protect the future of our planet.

There you have it – my top four reasons to become an SCA!

The Sustainability Champions Assistant programme is an opportunity open to all King’s students to help the King’s Sustainability Team deliver the Staff Sustainability Champions programme. Find out more here. 

Mason’s experience working with King’s Energy

August 9, 2021 /

This guest blog comes from Mason Cole, MA Politics and Contemporary History student and Sustainability Champion Assistant (SCA), supporting the King’s Energy Team.

Those of you who are regular readers of our weekly blog posts may notice the same name every week next to the title – that’s me. You may be questioning what I actually do, why I volunteer for King’s Energy and how I keep churning out these posts – or not. But I will tell you anyway.

To be completely honest, I didn’t sign up to volunteer as a sustainability champion because I was particularly passionate about being an ecowarrior. In fact, I didn’t even sign up at all. My girlfriend signed me up because she felt some volunteering experience would look good on my CV. I must confess, I wasn’t pleased. I interpreted that I would be collecting rubbish in my already limited spare time. When I was assigned to King’s Energy, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. To give you some background info, I studied History as my BA and Politics and Contemporary History as my MA – nothing “sciency” and very little to do with energy.

But I attended the first meeting with the team, consisting of two permanent members plus whichever sustainability champions have been coerced into joining. When I started, there were two of us. Neither of us knew a thing about energy. You would think it is quite over-awing being dropped in a call with two people who work and have extensive experience in the field, but they’re completely normal people who are relaxed and accommodating, creating a laid-back, low-pressure environment. Additionally, they had no initial expectations of us. Instead, they allowed us to establish what roles we wanted to take on – enabling us to play to our strengths. Finally, the role did not involve hours of scouring the beach for litter. Instead, I spent an hour a week partaking in our virtual team meetings and around the same time researching and writing blog posts.

When it comes to this part of the role, you agree as a team what the post will be about, but the content and how you write it is entirely up to you. There is also the opportunity to create graphics for social media, but if you were to see some of my attempts, you would understand why I stuck to writing. In terms of researching and writing posts, as I mentioned, it is not terribly time-consuming, and it is actually interesting. Energy is not just about telling people to turn the lights off; it covers how it is generated, the impacts of this and educates you on how energy affects your life. It is a topic of huge importance, and quite simply, there is no better place to educate yourself on this than working with King’s Energy.

Six months on from being forcibly signed up, I am here advocating the role. As my girlfriend initially suggested, it will take pride of place on my CV, but it has been so much more than that. I have gained valuable writing experience and been exposed to a potential future career.

The Sustainability Champions Assistant programme is an opportunity open to all King’s students to help the King’s Sustainability Team deliver the Staff Sustainability Champions programme. Find out more here. 

Sustainability Month – February 2021

February 9, 2021 /

King’s Sustainability Month (February 2021)

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Apply to become a Sustainability Champion Assistant!

November 19, 2020 /

Want to gain skills to help you start a career in sustainability? This is your chance to help make a difference here at King’s.

Join staff and students in the Sustainability Champion scheme aimed at celebrating and recognising environmental achievements whilst also providing a framework to improve the environmental performance of King’s College London. The scheme is part of Green Impact, an environmental awards programme run by the National Union of Students. Last year King’s College London had 70 teams participate and this year would like the programme to be bigger than ever!

Objectives of a Sustainability Champion Assistant:

Support and motivate a staff Sustainability Champion team by helping to implement and improve sustainability initiatives in their department or faculty. Staff teams seeking student support this year include: King’s Food, Energy, Procurement, International Development, Dickson Poon School of Law.

Key skills gained for students:

  • Experience of working on a national project in a professional environment
  • Knowledge of environmental management techniques of offices and academic institutions
  • Insight into effective behaviour change methods
  • Experience of communicating using a variety of different means
  • Ability to support and encourage others to perform
  • Events management skills
  • Leadership skills
  • Time management
  • Project management

Apply

Please find the full role description on the KCLSU here.  

Please fill out the application form. You are also welcome to send your CV to alexandra.m.hepple@kcl.ac.uk.

The deadline for applications is midnight on the 4 December 2020.

Our Fairtrade University audit

June 5, 2020 /

King’s has been an accredited Fairtrade University since 2017, when we re-certified after a few years of not taking part in the scheme. As part of the Fairtrade University scheme, we passed a new Fairtrade policy (as well as a Sustainable Food one), and set up our Fairtrade and Sustainable Food Steering Group. Many sustainability initiatives around food were first discussed in this Steering Group, and the Fairtrade University award pushed us to look at how we could improve further.

So when the Fairtrade Foundation and NUS teamed up to revamp the award scheme and run it jointly, we signed up to be in their 2018-20 cohort.

The new scheme asked us to go beyond the five commitments outlined in the original programme, and focus on five areas of action:

  • Leadership and Strategy, including having policies and statements on supporting Fairtrade
  • Campaigning and Influencing, including supporting campaigns like Fairtrade Fortnight, and running an innovative campaign each year
  • Procurement, Retail & Catering, including offering Fairtrade in a wide variety of categories
  • Research and Curriculum, including offering student dissertation topics on Fairtrade topics
  • Outcomes, including measuring our impact

It also required us to create a Fairtrade Action Plan, which is available on the King’s website here.

As part of the new Fairtrade University scheme, we made lots of improvements over the last two years. All coffee and tea served by King’s Food was already Fairtrade-certified, and in the case of coffee, also organic and Rainforest Alliance-certified. But when it comes to other products, King’s Food have increased the amount of Fairtrade ranges they sell. For example, orange juice sold by King’s Food is now Fairtrade-certified. While they have previously sold Fairtrade snacks like brownies and cookies, many of the cakes you find in King’s Food cafés are made on site by chefs now. Since last year, Fairtrade cocoa is being used to make these treats. During Fairtrade Fortnight, they also introduced Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate at their outlets, with the team from Tony’s coming along to hand out samples. The Fairtrade University Award is a joint programme between King’s and KCLSU, so KCLSU have also made improvements to their sourcing. The drawstring bags on sale at Nought are made from Fairtrade cotton, and KCLSU even serve Fairtrade rum at some venues.

We have also started including questions about Fairtrade and Sustainable Food in our induction survey in King’s Residences, results of which you can find on our Fairtrade page. In addition, we welcome students doing dissertations on Fairtrade and ethical trade issues at King’s, and are happy to support students wishing to carry out research on this with access to data. We also supported staff member Rebecca Brown in setting up the Universities Against Modern Slavery Alliance (UAMSA), a new association between universities which aims to bring the issue of sustainability and labour exploitation in supply chains into the public conscious. In March 2019, King’s hosted the inaugural UAMSA conference, which was a great success. You can read more about UAMSA in this blog post by a student volunteer who helped organise the conference.

Previously, the Fairtrade Foundation audited the universities – but under the new scheme, students are trained by the NUS to become auditors. Four King’s students were chosen to audit King’s this year, and in late May, carried out an audit of King’s by interviewing members of the Sustainability and King’s Food teams. We are now awaiting their final report, and are looking forward to hearing how we have done!

Many of our initiatives around Fairtrade and sustainable food, including sourcing of new products, our coffee cup levy and donation of leftover packaged food were discussed in our Fairtrade and Sustainable Food Steering Group over the last couple of years. The group is attended by the Sustainability team, King’s Food and KCLSU, as well as any interested students and staff members. There is an open invitation to join the group meetings, which take place every three months. To get an invite to the next meeting (likely to take place online at the end of July), email sustainability@kcl.ac.uk

Sustainability Week 2020

March 5, 2020 /

Each year, we hold Sustainability Week to raise awareness and educate King’s staff and students about sustainability at King’s. Sustainability Week revolves around how to ‘#MakeADifference’. The Sustainability Team, alongside students, student societies, staff Sustainability Champions and charities, put on events with the aim to educate and inspire around various topics relating to sustainability (whether that be social, environmental or economic), give back to society and most of all – have fun!

We had a total of 522 people come to take part in the events throughout the week.

Here is a summary of some of the events we had throughout the week…

GEOGFEST

GeogFest’ was a charity event for King’s staff and students, organised by GeogSoc and the Geography Sustainability Champions to raise money for the International Tree Foundation.

The event took place in the KCLSU bar The Vault on Friday 7th February as an early kick of to Sustainability Week.

There was entertainment from the Worn out Shoes ceilidh band formed by academics from across the Geography department, PhD candidate George Warren and a dance materclass by UG student Pia Fletcher.

There was a live count of the money raised through the night, in total the Geography department raised £243.38 for the ITF, which will be used to help offset the flights from second year Portugal and Morocco fieldwork trips.

 

DIY lip balm & craft your own zero-waste products

Gathered in the KCLSU zero-waste store, Nought, 24 students got together to learn how to make their own zero-waste lip balms (recipe here – made without the honey) and how to crochet their own face scrubbie, instructed by King’s Energy Manager and star crafter, Julie Allen.

During sustainability week, Nought held a competition to win a zero-waste hamper for all those who spent over £10 – so this event was also a chance for the students to stock up on their essentials to be in with a chance to win!

A Green Threaded Corridor

Artist and Goldsmiths University student, Margaret Jennings came to Kings to deliver ‘A Green Threaded Corridor: Tree Art Workshop’. The workshop started with a conversation about our natural environment in the middle of Guy’s campus memorial garden and an insight into Margaret’s background and artwork. This was followed by a silent walk around the gardens, taking notice of the trees and life which surrounds them.

Natural materials from the gardens were gathered and used in the art section of the workshop. The art was inspired by our individual tree stories (e.g. a cherry tree in a grandfathers garden or the grief you feel when a tree is cut down) – the art could be painting, drawing, poems. These were passed around and altered by others – as a comment to nature and its ever evolving state.

The art and poems created in the workshop will form the body of Margaret’s research at Goldsmiths university – alongside other university and community group tree stories.

The event ended with planting a Birch sapling on Guys Campus gifted by Goldsmiths University. This will form part of a tree corridor, as King’s will be mirroring this by gifting an Alder tree to Goldsmiths University.

 

King’s Think Tank: Post-Environmental Regulations Debate

See the blog post below, for an event summary from the Director and Researcher of the King’s Think Tank Energy and Environment policy centre.

Vegan Sushi Class

King’s Vegetarian and Vegan society ran a vegan sushi class at Great Dover Street Apartments (GDSA) café. Over 30 students came to learn how to make their vegan sushi from scratch – how to cook the perfect sushi rice, prepare the vegetables, tofu or tempeh and do the perfect sushi roll.

Circular Economy Workshop with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation

On the final day in Sustainability Week, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation came to deliver a workshop on circular economy.

They gave attendees an overview of what the circular economy is, and what businesses and services using circular economy principles may look like. As it was Valentine’s Day, they tasked students with coming up with circular economy alternatives to common Valentine’s presents, including re-used cards and potted flowers.

 

 

King’s Global Day of Service

March 2, 2020 /

Each year in March, students, staff and alumni take part in a range of volunteering activities across the world as part of King’s Global Day of Service.

This year, King’s Global Day of Service is on Wednesday 25th March (to celebrate the day King’s was founded) but any volunteering activities that take place throughout March can contribute to GDoS volunteering hours.

King’s is the first university in the UK to run Service events at this scale and the King’s GDoS activities represent our commitment to serving local, national and international communities.

The 2019 GDoS involved 190 volunteers in nine Service events in London and fifteen international events, across five continents. In total, 635 Service hours were completed, with an estimated economic impact of £5,000.

Find out more about what you can get involved in at King’s and across London this 2020 GDoS, here.

My Internship in the King’s Sustainability Department #3

January 17, 2020 /

This guest blog comes courtesy of Isabella Trujillo-Cortes, 3rd year Biomedical Engineering student at King’s who participated in the three-week micro-internship opportunity (organised by King’s Careers) with the King’s Sustainability Team in April 2019.  This blog comes last in a series of three blog posts from Isabella. 

Sustainability in Estates & Facilities

Student Accommodation / Residences

King’s Food

King’s Sport

King’s Venues

Fit for King’s

Asset Improvement & Space planning

Evaluation

  • The United Nations state that good health is essential to sustainable development, and thus, King’s highly encourages healthy living and well-being. SDG 3 is the most popular within the department and maps across almost every division. 
  • SDG 8 focuses on energy productivity. Given the number of computers, projectors and TVs across the university campuses it is vital that the Estates & Facilities department minimises the amount of energy consumed. 
  • Income equality affects staff and students as it may prevent them from pursuing opportunities. SDG 10 states empowering lower income earners is vital, and Kings are taking many approaches to work on this. In some areas, for example, the Estates & Facilities department gives discounted rates to those with lower income. 
  • An SDG also commonly shared across the department is SDG 11. To face the rapid growth of cities and increasing rural to urban migration, it is vital to focus on sustainable development. As Estates and Facilities manage the venues, residences and space planning in the university this SDG addresses this department most than the others at King’s. 
  • SDG 12 is also implemented in almost every division. Aside from meeting the social responsibility and service targets, King’s also focuses on environmental aspects. It is important that we reduce our ecological footprint by adjusting our consumption and production methods. This goal is being achieved in the way King’s manages the world’s shared natural resources and disposes of toxic waste and pollutants.
    SDG 13 is also quite similar to 12. In managing our consumption and production methods, the human impact on climate change is reduced. 
  • King’s is ranked as the world’s 14th most international university with over 40% of students being from outside the UK. The university focuses on establishing an inclusive community where students from abroad feel they are welcomed. This maps out SDG 16 which encourages peace and unity. 
  • SDG 17 explains that the SDGs can only be realized with strong partnership and cooperation. To achieve this on a global scale we must begin locally. The Estates & Facilities department does so by raising awareness of sustainability and service to staff and students.

My Internship in the King’s Sustainability Department #1

January 15, 2020 /

This guest blog comes courtesy of Isabella Trujillo-Cortes, 3rd year Biomedical Engineering student at King’s who participated in the three-week micro-internship opportunity (organised by King’s Careers) with the King’s Sustainability Team in April 2019.  This blog comes first in a series of three blog posts from Isabella. 

Introduction 

My name is Isabella Trujillo-Cortes and I am a 2nd Year Biomedical Engineering student at King’s.  I have just completed the Careers+ Global Internship programme where I undertook a 4-week internship in Hong Kong this July 2019.
The Careers+ programme is aimed towards UK undergraduate King’s students from under-represented groups.
I am of Colombian heritage and I was raised in Newham, London. Despite growing up in a low-participation borough and attending a state school where high grades were not common, I have utilized the support from widening participation schemes to excel in school and college. My up-bringing in London has exposed me to many cultures which motivated me to apply to the Global Internship Programme. As a proud Latina, I am motivated to share my traditions with those of other backgrounds and cultures. The global internship will give me the opportunity to do so.

Aside from the internship, the programme provided one-to-one support and specially designed workshops to support us in achieving life-long success.
To prepare ahead of the global internship and to familiarise myself with the work environment of a professional office, I was also given the opportunity to complete a micro-internship with the Sustainability Department at King’s.

Having recently taken a module titled ‘Professional Issues in Biomedical Engineering’ I was introduced to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The module enhanced my knowledge of the issues concerning our environment; however, I was not fully aware of the goals regarding social and economic aspects.

In addition, I am currently a Social Mobility & Student Success ambassador at King’s. In this role, I have been exposed to one of the many areas of service and sustainability which the university focuses on. I appreciate how the university supports and encourages prospective students from disadvantaged backgrounds through widening participation.

In completing my project with the Sustainability department, I saw how the
SDGs, as well as  how global challenges (both environmental and social) are being addressed across the university.
I have also been introduced to the King’s Strategic Vision 2029 – a vision which sets out the aspirations of King’s to make the world a better place. King’s hopes to do this by amplifying Service as core to the public purpose of King’s and to facilitate participation of staff and students. The university are aiming to generate innovate ideas to impact society and work together to deliver these. The Service activity will be evaluated and measured in order to constantly improve strategies.

The internship raised my awareness of the student societies at King’s which tackle global challenges and promote sustainability. For example, the Enactus society (present at King’s, but also many universities world-wide) which implement community impact projects in order to enable sustainable human progress.
In addition, I have become more familiar with the practices and policies across the university to tackle environmental problems. For example, the methods used to recycle laboratory waste, save energy and water, and minimise food waste. The Sustainability Champions programme play a vital part in encouraging others to follow sustainable policies, initiative sustainable behaviour change and work together to reduce the negative and maximise the positive social and environmental impacts.

Furthermore, during my time in the placement, I was fortunate enough to have attended a Service Oversight Group meeting. I was informed about the wider service agenda and updates on progress and achievements. I was also introduced to a student-led project – the ESSA Project. Students delivered an audit report on the social responsibility at King’s which further informed me of the social responsibility practices in the university.

The social responsibility report stated that there was not sufficient communication to students about projects and volunteering opportunities. I find it interesting that this was the main area of improvement as, being a student myself, prior to completing this placement I was not aware of the many on-going projects around the university regarding Sustainability and Service. I agree that this area needs improvement in order to facilitate participation of students, and hence, progress in the Strategic Vision 2029. A training programme titled Supporting Service Leaders at King’s was also promoted in order to encourage staff to focus on Service in leadership. Such strategies such as these could further increase the participation of staff – both those working in Service as well as in other departments.

The service team also mentioned the idea of implementing compulsory modules in sustainability and service across all departments. As I completed a similar module in my course, which I found very engaging, I believe this idea is very likely to encourage other students to contribute in service.

After this internship I am looking to improve the statistics in student engagement by participating in areas of service throughout the university. I hope to join a student society where I can volunteer in social action projects to make an impact to our society and environment. I also look forward to encouraging staff in my department to become Sustainability Champions.

Kings are ranked 5th in the global THE University Impact Rankings and it is our responsibility to maintain this spot or potentially move up. I hope to contribute by playing my part in achieving the Sustainability Goals. Having completed this internship, I am now encouraged more than ever, to make a difference both on a local and global scale.

Lastly, by working in a professional office, I have enhanced my project management, communication, research and analytical skills. I hope to take these skills forward and apply them to my university studies and at my internship in Hong Kong.

 

 

Part 2 to be published tomorrow, 16.1.20
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