Launch of Team Greenhouse at the Mansion Site

On Wednesday afternoon the Avery Hill Mansion Site took a huge step towards a more sustainable future as the School of Education launched a new group to integrate sustainability into the School's practises. The group which has been launched by Mark Potter, the School's sustainability champion and Yana Tainsh, the Director of Resources, is named 'Team Greenhouse' and its inaugural meeting brought together 15 members of the School's staff.

Team Greenhouse listen with enthusiasm at the inaugral meeting

Chris Philpott the Dean of the School gave an opening address, proclaiming the School's ambitions to move forward on the subject of sustainability and to integrate it not just into the working practises of the school but into the teaching and research elements as well. Yana and Mark both explained how the group was going to work and invited the other members of staff to fully immerse themselves in the implementation of the Green Impact workbook. The School have set out to achieve the Bronze award of the Green Impact workbook but will be keeping an eye on the Silver tasks and starting a few of them as well. The Green Gnome is predicting that they will be getting themselves the Silver award as well this year!

The spirits were high amongst the group and there was a big sense of enthusiasm to get started with the tasks in the Green Impact workbook - so much so that the second meeting for Team Greenhouse is already lined up for next week! Here's a cheer for Team Greenhouse - Huzzah! - and we are looking forward to seeing what innovative ideas they come up with over the coming months.

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.

Bigger, Better but with a Smaller Footprint.....

Green Impact II: The Sequel

Tuesday saw the launch of the second year of the University’s Green Impact project and Sustainability Champions Network. The project brings together sustainability champions from nearly every department within the University to complete a workbook-full of tasks set to improve the University’s environmental performance.

John tries to explain how much bigger the new workbook is

There are a lot of new sustainability champions joining the network this year bringing the total number of staff members implementing the Green Impact workbook to over 40. The champions will be trying to earn their department either Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum awards before they hand the workbooks in before Easter next year. Joining the various schools and offices in the University taking part in the scheme will also be Hadlow College – one of the University’s partner colleges that is working to reduce their carbon footprint and looking for new initiatives to do this. Sue Brimlow the college’s Sustainability Manager joined us for the event to find out what they could gain from working with Greenwich on implementing Green Impact workbook at Hadlow.

Kat Thorne – Head of Sustainability for the University kicked of proceedings by giving us an overview of sustainability at the University and how the global issues of population growth and increased demand on resources are impacting on the university. This was followed by highlighting some of the key areas of the Sustainability Policy and how the University was implementing them plus emphasising some of the key areas the Sustainability Team will be working on over the next 12 months.

University of Greenwich Green Impact launch

View more presentations from The Greenwich Sustainability Team

Following Kat was David Young, one of the sustainability champions for IT at the Greenwich campus and self-titled ‘University of Greenwich Quiz Master’ – who’d put together an interactive quiz (Who Wants to be a Millionaire style) just to make sure the sustainability champions were listening to Kat’s speech. Despite a few iffy answers we are pleased to announce that the vast majority got the answers correct. Following the quiz John Bailey the Sustainability Projects Officer for the University went on to explain a few of the ins and outs of how the sustainability champions network works and how the new champions could expect to be communicating the sustainability message across the university.

Charlotte Taylor followed up giving us a national perspective on the NUS Green Impact scheme and showed how it had grown from being a pilot project at Bristol University to being taken up by 48 different universities for this academic year. At the University of Greenwich the sustainability champions completed 561 tasks through the Green Impact scheme and this fantastic number is being repeated all around the country with nearly 4,000 people directly involved and 19,620 tasks completed across the 35 universities that took part last year! That’s a great achievement and just goes to show how we are not alone fighting the sustainability corner but part of a much larger positive movement taking place nationwide!

Neil demonstrates a hire bike Brompton folding away

As well as Neil Garrod giving the champions a sneak preview of the University's proposed Brompton bike hire scheme (complete with a slick demonstration of how to fold a Brompton bike as if trained by Mr. Brompton himself) he talked about how he'd recently gone back to look at the book on 'nudge theory' after recently surfacing on the government's agenda. He mentioned how the nudge theory applied to the work that the champions are doing across the University and would be key to successfully embedding the behaviour change that is needed in order for the University to achieve its sustainability goals.

Neil has been championing sustainability for over 20 years and cited an example about being viewed as a lone nut while working at a previous university where he tried to bring sustainability onto the agenda through the medium of recycled toilet paper. Neil has seen a change in the support from senior management at the University of Greenwich; he used to be the only one championing sustainability with others claiming that sustainability was not a priority. He now finds himself in the opposite situation with those who used to claim that sustainability is not a priority now championing sustainability themselves. The University’s high score in the People and Planet Green League and the potential savings shown in the carbon management plan have swayed the senior managers and explained to the sustainability champions that they need to understand what sustainability means to those they work with and appeal to their colleagues' individual agendas. 

Graeme Collie explains the culinary delights on offer

After the morning’s speeches and presentations we were delighted with a sustainable hospitality menu from the university’s caterers ABM Catering. Graeme Collie from ABM explained how the menu had made best use of local, seasonal, organic and free-range or high welfare ingredients and that they were working towards achieving a Silver Food for Life Award after implementing so many positive changes to the menus.

John Bisbrown explaining the results from the first workshop

Sustainability champions discussing some of the challenges ahead

The afternoon was packed full of workshops focused on challenging areas in the workbook and gave the champions a chance to work together to find a practical and pragmatic way of implementing some of the tasks. There was a strong focus on communication – as ever with sustainability – half the task is in how you communicate to your colleagues and win them over to the new practices and behaviours you are trying to implement. Positivity is a key message and focus for sustainability communications and is often far more effective than pedalling the doom and gloom stories. The Green Impact project and the Sustainability Policy and strategy are starting the move towards creating a more efficient university that creates a net positive impact. We finished the workshops with a great video from TED on how to start a movement in less than three minutes and how ‘a lone nut can become a leader’.

Guest Blog for the Guardian

Today the University of Greenwich Sustainability Champions ended up on the Guardian Higher Education Network. In a blog post written by the University's Sustainable Projects Officer, John Bailey writes about some of the fantastic tasks completed by the champions and the impact they have had in influencing change at the University.

You can see the article on the Guardian website here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2011/jul/20/sustainability-champions-network-university

The Higher Education Network has all sorts of brialliant bits and pieces from the sector so make sure you sign up to follow their news and events.

Sustainability Awards

Tuesday saw the University of Greenwich celebrate its first annual Sustainability Awards. To celebrate the progress the University has made over that last 12 months an esteemed selection of 45 people chosen for their contribution to the University’s sustainability effort were invited to Hamilton House for the event.

The event gets under way in Hamilton House

Neil Garrod lauds the efforts of the attendees in their contribution to sustainability at the University

On the agenda were speeches from the Sustainability Team, Charlotte Bonner from NUS green Impact Team, Neil Garrod Deputy Vice Chancellor for Resources and a presentation on ‘local food’ from Dr Howard Lee from Hadlow College. The main thrust of the speeches was angled towards the positive changes that had occurred at the University over the last 12 months and celebrating the impact that the people in the room had in helping bring about these positive changes.

A large part of the event was based around the achievements of the sustainability champions and to award them certificates and prizes for the work they had been doing on the Green Impact workbook. The workbook which had 22 tasks to complete for the bronze award, 15 for silver and 65 bonus tasks was attempted by all the sustainability champions. Since we launched the workbook an astonishing 561 tasks towards improving the University’s sustainability performance have been undertaken by the champions and their departments. These 561 completed tasks are the result of the hard work and determination of our sustainability champions, who have had to persuade, change and influence their colleagues and peers since the workbook was launched in October last year.

Overall 23 schools and departments achieved the bronze award, 1 achieved the silver and in turn won the gold award for the department that completed the most tasks. The golden department was the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), led by Caroline Troy, which completed a whopping 61 tasks in total. It might not be surprising that the NRI is leading the way with sustainability at Greenwich when sustainable development is at the heart of the NRI’s mission statement.

“Our mission is to provide distinctive, high quality and relevant research, consultancy, learning and advice in support of sustainable development, economic growth and poverty reduction.”

Caroline Troy receives her prize for bronze, silver and gold award in the Green Impact workbook.

Along with the awards to the sustainability champions there were a few special awards going around for people who had put in a particularly strong effort towards sustainability at the University. Ian Cakebread and Tony Dodson won an award for their excellent bicycle powered generators built for Green Week, Pru Jones received an award for her efforts towards recycling at the Medway campus (often as high as 70%), ABM Catering won an award for their move towards sustainable menus and Sustain won an award for their contribution to the Sustainable Food Policy.

There was one particularly special award being handed out which was the Sustainability Hero Award complete with FA Cup style trophy, courtesy of Glasdon UK, which went to Mary McCartney from the Business School. Mary won the award for the extra effort she put in over the year towards sustainability. As the only champion in the Business School she has helped get sustainability to the top of the agenda within the school which is now developing more programmes, employing more lecturers and more researchers with sustainability at the heart of what they do. On top of this Mary managed to get the 2^nd highest number of tasks done in the Green Impact workbook and fully deserves the award for 2011.

Neil Garrod awards the Sustainability Hero trophy to Mary McCartney

All the sustainability champions with their prizes

Following the awards everyone headed to Greenwich Park to enjoy a Sustainability Picnic laid on by ABM Catering. The menu was designed to showcase the best of the food on offer from the south east of England that we have available at the University. The menu included local cheeses, University of Greenwich home baked bread, cakes and scones and a selection of locally grown fruits.

Sustainability menu provided by ABM Catering

Enjoying the sunshine and the picnic in the park

Green Impact Audits

Last week the University completed several days of auditing the different departments that had taken part in the Green Impact Universities project. The University's sustainability champions have spent the last six months implementing changes within their departments to bring about environmental improvements accross the Univrsity as a whole. Sustainability intern Stefano Maggi joined in the day of doing the audits at the Greenwich Campus and summarises the experience below:

Last Thursday and Friday, 5th and 6th May, the campuses of the University of Greenwich were audited for the Green Impact Universities scheme, a departmental accreditation scheme which encourages University staff to make changes at work in order to help reduce the negative impacts on the environment.

Collection point for used toner cartridges

As intern at the Sustainability Team of the University, I decided to take part in this interesting activity. I joined the team on 5th May, when the auditing took place at Greenwich and Avery Hill campuses.

During the morning, John Bailey, Adam White, myself and the other participants were introduced to the Green Impact project and trained by Joanna Romanowicz (Green Impact Project Officer at the National Union of Students) to ensure the quality of the auditing.

Collection for good on one side paper

The role of an environmental auditor is that to examine, check and evaluate the environmental performances of an organization through a semi-structured assessment. In practice, our task required us to visit University’s schools and offices in order to verify their actions in compliance with the Bronze and Silver Green Impact Workbook.

These workbooks provided us with the criteria that we used to evaluate the work of every department audited. Essentially, what we did was ask relevant questions for every criterion and request evidence to check compliances. Such evidence could take several forms like, for instance, communications sent to staff members, labelled bins, posters stuck on walls, printer settings, paper used in offices and so on.

The mentioned criteria refer to different environmental themes and issues of communications, recycling, electricity and energy, procurement and travel. When the criteria is not met, the auditor can issue a Compliance Action Request (CAR) which requires the department to address the outstanding issue and provide the auditor with suitable evidence within a week.

Office thermometer

Once the training was complete, we could begin the actual audit. John and Adam lefto to audit the Avery Hill Campus while Heather Lilliman, Joanna and myself took charge of auditing the Greenwich Campus.

We started with a collective assessment at the Accommodation Office of the Greenwich Campus after which I and Heather audited the Student Union, the ILS department and the Humanities and Social Sciences School. Throughout the auditing I could see that my University is really moving toward a more sustainable use of resources and a less harmful impact on the environment.

Posters promoting walk to work week and how to double sided print

For example, I noticed that most of departments/offices now induct new staff on significant green issues and encourage them to do their part from their first day of work. Furthermore, they make use of shut down plans, use stickers on light switches, draw up check-lists aimed at identifying energy saving opportunities and try to encourage colleagues to recycle. Finally, most of printers and photocopiers are currently set to duplex (double-sided printing) and the paper used is often recycled.

Environmental auditing training at the Medway Campus

So I can definitely say that the work of the Sustainability Team has been very effective so far and its members have been able to sensitize University’s staff awareness of environmental issues.

Personally, I found this opportunity very interesting since I could gain valuable experience and learn something new and useful. I am proud to study in such “green” academic institution and confident that the University of Greenwich will keep on improving and reach ambitious goals in the near future.

Greenwich Bees and Avery Hill Snow

It is an incredibly busy time in the Sustainability Team at the moment with the first draft of the Carbon Management Plan due this week, Fairtrade Internship interviews and a carol concert! If that wasn't enough last week we had the launch of our Green Impact workbook, three Green Impact workshops (one at each campus) and John was sent away for two days of waste management training with CIWM and Revise.

Amongst all of that we have still managed to take a few photos and check on our new bees at the Greenwich Campus and take a moment to absorb the snowy view from our office window.

Overlooking London and Greenwich Campus from the Royal Observatory

The bees at the Greenwich Mausoleum

Looking accross Avery Hill Park towards the Mansion Site

Avery Hill Park

View from the Sustainability Office

Sustainability Champions Launch Day

Last Tuesday was a big day for the University of Greenwich and its plans to develop a more sustainable and environmentally friendly culture across the staff and student body. The Sustainability Team has been boosted by the launch of the Staff Sustainability Champions Network and the Green Impact Workbook.

Deputy Vice Chancellor Neil Garrod

Members of staff who have volunteered and been nominated by heads of department to become the local champion for sustainability within their department converged on the Court Room at the Greenwich Campus for launch of the Sustainability Champions Network and the Green Impact Workbook. Deputy Vice Chancellor Neil Garrod was there to show his support and that of the senior management at the University for steering the University of Greenwich towards becoming a leader in the sector for reducing carbon emissions and promoting sustainable practice.

The Staff Sustainability Champions Network is the main thrust of the University’s attempt to reduce its carbon footprint through behaviour change. Staff Champions will attend campus based workshops where they will work together in identifying environmental and energy saving opportunities and how to go about implementing positive changes in their workplace. While communicating the sustainability message from the Sustainability Team to the wider University community they will also feedback from the community and help to drive the sustainability agenda at the University.

The reduction in carbon emissions from behaviour change can be quite difficult to measure but reports have suggested that anywhere between 5-15% carbon reduction can be achieved through good housekeeping. The Staff Champions will be playing into a wider University Sustainability Policy and carbon management plan that hopes to achieve a 35% reduction in carbon emissions on a 2005 baseline by 2015 and 50% by 2020.

To kick start the project the University has been working with the National Union of Students (NUS) to give our staff champions a workbook with low or no cost, easy to implement tasks that work on reducing energy usage and waste and improving procurement, travel, biodiversity and communication. The Green Impact project was initially piloted at Bristol University and the following year a further 21 universities became involved. This year the University of Greenwich is one of over 30 universities taking part. The Green Impact and Staff Champions Network has been well received with almost every department and school represented and some with multiple champions as well.

Tuesday’s launch event went well and the training session revealed that a number of offices and departments were already performing well in particular areas. Particularly interesting to discover that Admissions at the University is operating a paperless office, lots of departments have set up their own toner cartridge recycling collections, lots of our staff champions were cyclists and everyone was keen to say they were good at switching off and recycling. Two interesting revelations came from the champions from the Vice Chancellor’s Office and the Students Union revealing that Tessa Blackstone the Vice Chancellor goes round the campus switching unnecessary lights off and the Chief Executive of the Students Union cycles into work every day.

Clearly there is an appetite for positive environmental improvement at the University and the Sustainability Champions Network will help us work together, share best practice and bring about the steps to move the University closer towards its environmental and sustainability aspirations.

John starts off the Staff Sustainability Champions introducing themselves

Staff Champions taking over the Court Room



Staff Champion from the Business School Mary introduces herself to the group.



The Sustainability Train at full steam.

It has been a little while since I last posted here on the Green Greenwich Blog, largely due to the non-stop nature of everything going on here! It barely feels like we have had a moment to catch a breath here at the University and it looks like it is going to be that way for foreseeable future.

Where's Kat hiding?

The Sustainability Team is somewhat reduced at the moment with our Captain Kat Thorne exploring the rainforests in far and distant lands but John and the Gnome have been hard at work in her absence. Most notably on the Higher Education Carbon Management Plan where we have joined forces with the Head of Estates and the Building Services Manager to keep the University chugging along in getting the plan ready for early next year. Expect to see numerous projects appearing spread across all the departments of the University all with measures in place for cutting our carbon emissions and working towards the targets set out by HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) and the Climate Change Act 2008.

Last week Sustainability and Marketing were knocking their heads together to work towards an exciting campaign to promote everything ‘sustainability’ at the University with conversation moving from the website, to fridge magnets, to computer games, staff and student engagement and potential competitions for our students to get involved with. Speaking of students getting involved we have found a space on the brand new shiny Biodiversity Group for one lucky student who lives at Avery Hill to assist with the direction we want to take our biodiversity projects. I’m hoping that this is going to lead to new era of environmental understanding and diversity on the Campus here at Avery Hill and there already seems to be interest for restoring the dingle, reinvigorating the part of the River Shuttle that runs through the campus, creating a wildflower meadow, building an allotment and planting fruiting trees.

On the subject of fruit I am delighted to announce that I have been reaping the benefits of being based here at Avery Hill and have spent at least two lunchtimes wandering around picking the delights the campus has to offer. On the menu last Thursday was a dish I have never tried cooking before – Quince Crumble. It’s delicious but a very different ingredient to any that I have used before. The quince has an incredibly sharp taste which you must compliment with buckets of sugar and cooking for long lengths of time, once this is done however you have an unforgettable flavour which reminds me of the taste of the Toxic Waste sweets! Not a great name for a sweet but they are delicious if you like that sort of thing.

Quince Crumble (Mine wasn't quite as beautiful!)

If you want to give the Quince Crumble a try here’s the recipe I followed. The next quince dish I will try will be Quince Membrillo, which the Spanish like to eat with cheese.

Tonight I will be attempting something a little bit different with another fruit I have found on the Avery Hill Campus. Tonight is Sloe Gin Night! I have picked roughly 50 sloe berries which have been placed in the freezer (Sloes you traditionally pick after the first frost but I am inpatient so I’m creating a fake frost by putting them in the freezer) they will be removed this evening, will go through the torment of being meticulously pricked with a needle and then placed into a big bottle of cheap gin. No need to go for an expensive gin here, the sloes will overpower the flavour anyway. Add a little sugar and then place in a dark cupboard until Christmas. Christmas Day, get the gin out and serve to all your friends and family. Boxing Day, stay in bed!

Sloes, Sugar and Gin - A recipe for success!

In other news I have been working hard on the preparations for the launch of our Sustainability Champions Network which is looking like it will be on the 9th of November. To go hand in hand with this we will also be launching our Green Impact workbook so our Champions will have a great project to get going with right from the onset. Next week we have the first meeting of the aforementioned Biodiversity Group, a visit from Joanna Romanowicz from the NUS, LUEG meetings, the GET Opportunities Recruitment Fair and a whole load of other goings on. Looks like it’s full steam ahead for little while longer then.

There's a buzz around the University of Greenwich

There's a buzz here at the University of Greenwich. We have been working hard here at the Sustainability office and have some exciting new developments and have made progress across a few areas since I last updated you.

Firstly that buzz you may be able to hear if you have been around the Avery Hill Campus recently. We have our first University of Greenwich bees. In the gardens of Southwood House we have a few fuzzy friends buzzing around our new set of hives. Our bees are of the honey making variety (maybe if you are really nice to us we will be able to make some available to you) so expect to see some University of Greenwich branded honey in the future.

Keeping with the theme of biodiversity we have found a few more interesting species on campus here at Avery Hill, a Mullberry Tree has been found, plenty of blackberries have been harvested, an oak tree that must be well over 100 years old has been spotted and few interesting species of fungi too - though I haven't been confident enough to harvest any mushrooms yet over a fear of an upset stomach.

Mushrooms in the Southwood House garden

We have been toiling away in preparation for the new academic year at the University and preparing ourselves for Freshers' Week. Expect to find us represented at both the Avery Hill and Greenwich Campus fayres and looking for members of our new People & Planet Group, telling new students about the recycling facilities at the halls of residence and distributing all sorts of information regarding anything to do with sustainability to anyone willing to listen.

Svetta our new intern has been busy scouring the University for information on the recycling facilities and we expect we should be able to put out a reasonable guide covering all the facilities, policies and practices across the University as a whole in the near future. Helping us along the way have been a few RAs and you can expect to meet some of them at the Freshers' Fayres next week.

The University has also had it's first Fairtrade Steering Group meeting, attended by SUUG, Sodexo, ABM and representatives from the University itself, who will be trying to gain Fairtrade accreditation for the University by increasing the number of Fairtrade products on campus. As well as the lovely Fairtrade products you can expect to see on the shelves you should be finding sustainable food too - the University is finalising it's sustainable food policy as we speak.

My biggest excitement recently though has been the arrival of a draft Green Impact Workbook in my inbox. A little while ago Charlotte Bonner from the NUS dropped by to meet some of our already enrolled sustainability champions to get ideas for making the University more environmentally friendly. So far she has sent 40 ideas across to us to peruse, adapt and comment on before we get the workbook finalised when she returns from cycling the Col du Tourmalet in France - an enduring test of strength and guile that I am all too familiar with! There is A LOT more to follow on this one and I can't wait to keep you updated as we progress!