Medway Campus Green Impact Collaboration

On Thursday the University of Greenwich teamed up with the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University to bring the efforts of the three universities together in implementing the Green Impact workbook at the Medway Campus. All three universities are taking part in the NUS Green Impact project and are working on three variations of the Green Impact workbook, which sets out tasks for improving the office or department you are working in. The project includes regular workshops which are run at each campus but rather than three different people running three different workshops for three different sets of sustainability champions we decided to bring the whole lot together in one big Medway Green Impact workshop.



Emily Crockford from Kent and Lucy Brown from Canterbury Christ Church lead a group task in the workshop.

 The workshop was focussed around introducing the concept of the Green Impact workbook to those that were new to the project and demonstrating what will be expected of the champions when they come to present their evidence during the auditing process. On top of the more regular parts of the workshop we had an exciting opportunity to demonstrate the crossover work, collective targets and opportunity for collaboration between the three universities.

Sustainability Champions from Greenwich, Kent and Canterbury Universities working together at Medway



The Medway collaboration will give sustainability champions a chance to share their work and ideas between all three universities and give everyone a chance to benefit from examples of best practice and the experiences of a wider pool of sustainability champions. At the same time the three respective sustainability teams implementing the Green Impact project at their campuses are benefiting from sharing ideas and resources for putting together the workshops and activities for Green Impact but are also able to discuss implementing sustainability on a wider reaching level across the three different universities. We are expecting this to be the start of a long and happy partnership between the three universities and a great opportunity for all involved to share the workload and push forward in implementing the Green Impact project.

Either side of the Green Impact workshop at the Medway Campus John Bailey was moonlighting as a guest lecturer for the civil engineers. After attending the ‘Sustainability Induction’ staff development workshop Deborah Sims, a senior lecturer in Civil Engineering decided that her students would benefit from seeing how the university is implementing sustainability on a practical level to go hand in hand with the theory the engineers are already learning. Thus she invited John to come to Medway and talk to two sets of engineering students that she teaches. The lectures gave the students an overview of some of the global challenges around population growth and resource use followed by a focussed insight on what these challenges mean to the university, how the university is responding to these challenges and what we can all do on a personal level.

Sustainability at the University of Greenwich

View more presentations from John Bailey.

Bike Week and TFL Cycle Challenge

With the sun shining this summer we've been going bike mad here at the University of Greenwich! Last week was bike week and to celebrate we organised a whole mutitude of events including a 'bike bus' for new cyclists to commute into work with a more experienced rider, staff led bike rides and we also bought new cycle repair equipment for the three campuses. You will now find a track pump, puncture repair kit and essential allan keys and spanners at each campus gatehouse.

At the Medway Campus Keith Tomlins took a break from his work at the Natural Resources Institute to lead a ride around  St Mary's Island taking in the local sights and a little local history too. Amongst the keen cyclists on the ride there was a Mr Mark Johnson who is the Transport Strategy and Initiatives Manager from Medway Council. Mark was keen to point out how the local council has a number of schemes to support cycling in the Medway region, including locally led rides around the area.

The medway riders in front of the famous red tomato!

The photo shows Upnor Castle in the background and the famous giant tomato. On closer inspection it appeared to be a bouy! Everyone on the ride commented about how they enjoyed the mixture of cycling and history and we shall be looking to organise more rides like this soon.

In other cycling related news the University of Greenwich has been storming up the league table in the TFL Cycle Challenge and is now in 4th position for the 11-50 members category. So far 50 cycling staff have clocked up over 4,000 miles. Our target is to beat last year's effort of 10,500 miles and with a few long rides by staff members this weekend we could be on track to beat our prevoious year's record!

Green Week Photos

Photos from the Medway Green Week fayre

Medway Green Week fayre in the Pilkington Building

Graeme from the University's caterers ABM shows off their sustainable food credentials and Fairtrade products.

Two students race each other on the bicycle powered generators supplied by the School of Engineering

Naomi our student Fairtrade representative shows of what the University is doing to reduce its negative environmental impact.

John and Kat from the Sustainability Team race each other on the bicycle generators.

The bicycle generators continue to be a hit with competitive students wanting to race.

Can you pedal for long enough to make a cup of tea?

Green Week is here!

Happy Green Week Everyone!

Today we are in Medway for the first day of our travelling Green Week Fayre make sure you come along and check out all the different stands. Look to the next blog post if you can't remember what they all are.

Also remember tomorrow we have a Medway Campus exclusive tour of the School of Engineering renewable energy projects and a chance to look at the brand new solar wall. If you want to come make sure you get to the fayre before 1pm as the tour will be leaving the Pilkington building at 1pm.

In the meantime make sure you download your Green Challenge Sheet for the chance to win the title of the University's Greenest Student/Staff Member/Department http://bit.ly/eR6QiJ and of course the opportunity to be interviewed on this very blog!