Something “green” is stirring in the air at BCU. The university is developing new initiatives to become an eco-friendly university and to educate students about the environment. The university has set up a new campaign entitled “grrreen“. It is based on the three ‘R’s reduce, reuse and recycle. BCU has appointed various members of staff to inject green practices throughout every level of the university whether it be in jewellery or creating eco-furniture. BCU also recently hosted the ‘Big Debate‘ which featured a panel of sustainability experts addressing Birmingham’s business leaders about developing green practices in the workplace. This shows that the university is on its way to becoming one of Birmingham’s most environmentally conscious education institutions.
Hopefully now the Union of Students will continue to further its work alongside the university in developing green strategies and educating students about becoming more eco-friendly. My sources at the union tell me that there will soon be nominations for a part-time environmental officer who will be a student elected by the students to work with the university and alongside Hannah Newland the representation and campaigns officer. So pay attention!
Well…better late than never! I was lucky enough to bag myself a ticket to Reading Festival this year and I had an amazing time. But I remembered not to take off my green hat and found out about what Reading was doing this year to become more environmentally friendly. Well most of their information on ‘Green Reading’ can be found here. But once arriving on site and picking up my brochure I read out their festival salvage plan which aims to collect everything from sleeping bags to pots and pans at the end of the weekend, and donate it to various charities. There was also the great idea of reducing waste by putting a 10p deposit on paper cups and 20p on water bottles. This made for a familiar sight of people walking round frantically searching for paper cups and some amusement was to be had by simply tieing a bit of a string to a cup and waiting for a poor lurker to take the bait! I managed to take some photos of various green initiatives going on at the festival.
Green recycling bags handed out to weekend campersOne festival goer collects paper cups for recycling
Friendly helpers reminding people to recycle on campgrounds
Place to recycle cans for beer!
Campers using green bags to recycle their beer cans
Each cup returned is worth 10p and helps reduce wastage
So the results were published in the Times Higher Education Supplement on Thursday. The results have shown an improvement in environmental management and performance in universities across the UK with the University of Gloucestershire topping the table. You can find out more about the results here. I had the chance to speak to Emma Hughes from People and Planet on Thursday and you can listen to the interview here.
The Green League 2008 is published tomorrow in the Times Higher Education Supplement. The Green League is a ranking of how environmentally friendly British Universities are. The results are based on 9 environmental criteria such as Co2 Emissions and the percentage of waste recycled for each institution. This is the second year the table has been published. Tomorrow hopefully I’ll be able to do an interview with someone from People and Planet the organisation which runs the Green League.
The winners of the 2007 competition are going to be on display at the Apothecary Gallery in West London from the 30th May until the 18th July. The 2008 competition is open for entries up until the 31st July and is split into five different categories. For more information on how to enter click here.
If you have the chance to then get down to London to see the exhibition as photography can have the power to change peoples’ hearts and minds. Below are just some examples of the entries from the 2007 competition that will be on display. You can listen to my interview with Emily here.
Birmingham City University Student Union has started a petition to lobby the university for more recycling facilities around the campuses. You can sign the petition here and also check out the Facebook group. I spoke to representations and campaigns officer Alex Jewitt a while ago about the union’s stance on green issues and he spoke about the union’s plans to lobby for more recycling facilities. Listen to the interview here. For more advice on recycling watch this
I recently spoke to Crispin Aubrey from the Glastonbury Festival about how the festival is trying to develop greener business practices and encourage festival goers to be more environmentally friendly. You can listen to the interview here
I’ve set up a YouTube Channel for Environmental News Onlinehere. Check out my new video I did. It’s a tour of my house looking at how I could be more environmentally friendly. Apologies about the T-Shirt it was a spur of the moment thing and I forgot to change my wardrobe. Not scripted much either. You can view it in it’s entirety here. Here is part one.
