Sustainability@Bangornewsletter

Summer 2016

Fairtrade fortnight

HEy punk, sort your junk!

success at green impact awards

Promoting Sustainability and Well-being across continents

Bangor University among the world’s greenest

Bangor University among the world’s greenestThe University has been placed in the top 5% of the world’s greenest universities in a global league table.

The UI Green Metric, produced by Universitas Indonesia highlights sustainability and environmental management at universities around the globe and measures each participating university’s commitment in developing an ‘environmentally friendly’ infrastructure.

Bangor University has risen 8 places in the latest table to 22nd, which now for the first time includes over 400 universities worldwide.

Vice-Chancellor Professor John G Hughes said:

“I am delighted that Bangor continues to rise in the table. We join five other

universities in the UK in leading the way in ‘greening’ the international higher education sector. Our further rise in the table demonstrates our ongoing commitment to taking positive action in promoting sustainability and achieving continual environmental improvement.”

Ricky Carter, Environmental Manager in the Estates and Facilities Department added:

“This latest news demonstrates that we are continuing to make significant progress in the management of our environment, not only at home but globally. We are reducing our energy use and carbon footprint annually, and we are now recycling more waste than ever as we continue to maintain our Green Dragon and ISO14001 environmental certifications. This league table is a testament to our wider commitment to

a sustainable Wales, a sustainable UK and a sustainable world”.

Director of Sustainability at Bangor Uni-versity, Dr Einir Young responded to the announcement saying:

I welcome this excellent news, our efforts in driving environmental im-provements and resource efficiencies throughout the organisation continue to

show dividends. We recognise that the environment is just one aspect of the sustainable development agenda, and we are focussing our efforts on integrat-ing sustainable practice into everything we do, through our research, our teach-ing and our own supply chain. In doing so we are contributing to the Welsh Government’s aspiration to ensure the well-being of future generations.”

B a n g o r U n i o n ' s f o o d b a n k d o n at i o n b a s k e t s

Love Bangor and SVB’s latest project is the food bank donation scheme. With the support of NUS they have been able to place donation baskets in 10 locations throughout the University.

The food collected from the University will go to those currently experiencing food poverty in the local area. All goods are donated to the Bangor Cathedral Food Bank which donate food packs to those who have been assessed and in turn,

received food vouchers.

Also thorough out May Student Volunteering Bangor (SVB) have been dedicating their time and effort to collecting food from Student Halls, and it’s been a massive success with the campaign managing to collect just over a tonne of food for the local food bank.

Bangor University takes action for Fairtrade Fortnight 2016

Bangor University took action for Fairtrade Fortnight 2016 calling on all students, staff and members of the local community to join in the celebrations.

The theme of this year’s celebration was “Sit Down For Breakfast, Stand Up For Farmers” and to mark the occasion members of the University’s Fairtrade group tucked into a breakfast at Gorad restaurant. The breakfast included Fairtrade staples such as tea, coffee and bananas.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day yet millions of farmers working in developing countries don’t earn enough to know where their next meal is coming from. The University’s food and drink outlets are absolutely committed to this campaign and each year we increase the number of Fairtrade products that we use” said Angela Church, Head of Catering and Conferencing.

The University, which has had Fairtrade status since 2009, once again joined forces with the Bangor City Fairtrade Group and Campus Life to celebrate the fortnight. This

year’s events included a Fairtrade Fayre, St David’s day quiz, a bake off competition, Karaoke and Fairtrade cocktails at Bar Uno and a Love Your Clothing event at the Deiniol Centre, Bangor. Throughout the fortnight Fairtrade breakfasts were served at Gorad restaurant and delicious Fairtrade chocolate and banana muffins were sold across the University’s eating outlets.

The University’s Fairtrade group comprises of representatives from the Commercial Services Department, the Sustainability Lab, Campus Life and the Student Union. Speaking on behalf of the group Mair Rowlands, of the Sustainability Lab said:

“It was great to see students, staff and members of the public supporting our activities. A simple step such as purchasing Fairtrade goods, which are available in all campus shops and University outlets, can enable farmers in some of the world’s poorest communities to earn a sustainable income and invest in projects which benefit their locality.”

Earth HourBangor University joined the global celebration for our brilliant planet by supporting WWF’s Earth Hour – a spectacular and symbolic lights out event that focuses the world’s attention on our planet, and the need to protect it.

On 19th March, at 8.30pm, Bangor University joined forces with thousands of iconic landmarks globally, from The Sydney Harbour Bridge to Times Square in New York, as they show their support. Earth Hour’s unique display of darkness has become a global phenomenon with hundreds of millions of individuals coming together each year.

Last year in Wales, it’s estimated that 500,000 people took part, sending out a united message of support. Participating Welsh landmarks included the Senedd in Cardiff Bay, Caernarfon Castle, and The National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. 235 Welsh schools signed up and Assembly Members from all parties showed their support.

To celebrate Earth Hour 2016, the floodlights on the main University building were switched off for the hour between 8.30pm – 9.30pm on 19th March.

Ricky Carter, Environmental Manager at Bangor University said:

“Once again we are pleased to support WWF in this global event. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the first Earth Hour held in Sydney Australia; since then the event has spread to over 170 countries and territories. Raising awareness in this way highlights the role that everyone can play in combatting climate change, through simple and individual actions.”

Hey punk, sort your junk!A number of local organisations came together this year to produce a campaign to try and reduce waste problems on the streets of Bangor at the end of term.

The University, the Students’ Union and Gwynedd Council worked together with local estate agents Dafydd Hardy and Williams and Goodwin as well as local charity Tŷ Gobaith to bring the “Hey punk, sort your junk!” campaign to the streets.

The aim of the project is to keep Bangor tidy and reduce the impact of students moving out. This is the first year that the

University and the Union has worked so closely with local estate agents in order to encourage a bigger and better response from tenants.

The Campaign has two aspects, the first being the extra bin collections that the Council have arranged for when students move out of their student housing at the end of the year. The second is the distribution and collection of charity bags; this is to avoid bulkier items that students can’t take home being put out with the refuse collection.

successful year for student switch offThe results are in, the energy savings have been verified and we can now announce that the winners of the 2015/16 Student Switch Off competition are Ffraw.

Ffraw celebrated their success with with a Ben&Jerry’s party in Bar Uno.

Check out how your hall did in the competition...

A new People and Planet Bangor student group that set up early this year has been working on one of their first projects – planting wildflower seeds in the city of Bangor. With permission and support from Gwynedd Council and the new Museum and Centre of Art Museum Storiel, a crew of enthusiastic students prepared some land and planted the wild seeds on Monday, 18th April.

They ordered the seeds as part of the Growing Wild Wales project, a project funded by the National Lottery, which distributed wildflower seeds that have been specifically selected for Wales by Kew Gardens in London. There are similar projects in the pipeline in North Ireland, Scotland and England.

The hope is that the flowers will grow at the end of June, and bloom over the summer. There are posters explaining what species have been planted on the site, so watch out to see if you know

them!

People and Planet will be running a series of similar activities during the year, including planting wild seeds on the Maesgeirchen estate, and preparing

an information booklet to support local businesses in the area, as well as the current People and Planet campaign focused on divestment from fossil fuels.

People and Planet say Lets Sow Bangor

This year, Campus Life, Student Volunteering Bangor, The Sustainability Lab and British Heart Foundation have joined forces in a charity initiative to stop waste going to landfill and also raise money for British Heart Foundation.

Pack for Good is a campaign to get students to donate their unwanted items to the British Heart Foundation at the end of the term and ran until the end of June when students were moving out from halls. Donation points were located at various points around the St Mary’s and Ffriddoedd Halls villages.

Amanda Purkiss, BHF Regional Stock Generator, said,

“We’re delighted to be working with Bangor University on the ‘Pack for Good’ campaign. 100% of the profits from the donations from students will go into the fight against heart disease and fund the BHF’s life saving research.

Coronary heart disease is the UK’s single biggest killer, shattering the lives of too many children, parents and grandparents – you can join the fight for every heartbeat by having a clear out and donating your unwanted things.”

Deirdre McIntyre, Residential Life Manager at Bangor, said,

“We’re pleased to be working with BHF, by helping raise vital funds to continue the BHF’s life saving work and at the

same time reducing the volume of waste entering landfill every year from university students.”

To show their commitment to the sustainability agenda and contributing to the goal of becoming the Sustainable University halls will be recruiting a ‘Campus Life Sustainability’ Coordinator. This role will assist in developing activities and campaigns around sustainability and will contribute to the University’s strategic vision of ‘ensuring all our students leave their experience at the University capable, creative and well-rounded graduates – global citizens with and understanding of the challenges and solutions required for a sustainable, resilient world.

The Campus Life Sustainability Coordinator may be an undergraduate or postgraduate student, and will be expected to work on average approx. 40 hours per month between September and June; in return they will receive rent free accommodation. The Campus Life Sustainability Coordinator will be expected to work 3-4 hours a week on the Student Switch Off Campaign and the rest of the hours on other activities and campaigns.

The individual appointed will work with members of the Sustainability Lab to develop some practical experience of sustainable development through projects and campaigns designed to make our own campus more sustainable. They will assist in events planning, organising and co-ordinating campaigns within halls across the communication channels used by students (e.g. Love Food Hate Waste, Love Your Clothes, BHF Pack for Good campaign).

Click the below link to apply for the Campus Life Sustainability Coordinator vacancy.

http://planet.cymru/en/campus-life-sust-coord/

Campus life sustainability coordinator

The establishment of the collaboration between Makerere University and Bangor University to promote Sustainable Development has seen the development of a student engagement Initiative, which is aimed at ensuring that students from both Universities take the lead and work together to promote sustainable development within their Universities and communities.

With support from Hub Cymru Africa, and the Sustainability Lab in partnership with the Student Union-Bangor and the Sustainability Program at Makerere, we are implementing a project entitled “Promoting Sustainability and Well-being across continents: Developing the Bangor-Makerere Students link.”

This project is currently focusing on four main area which include; Urban greening, improving energy efficiency, improving waste management & resource utilisation, and increasing awareness, communication and publicity of sustainability. Students from both universities are working together to share ideas and implement these projects collaboratively.

Progress has been made through

this project, some of which includes employing a student Intern, through the University’s Employability scheme to work as the direct Liaison between the two student bodies and as part of the planning and implementing process of the project. Luke Barrett worked directly on the project under the supervision of the project coordinator developing his professional skills and project management.

He produced an energy efficiency guide using tips from the existing Bangor University strategy and shared it with the Makerere University student teams who in turn will be designing the energy efficiency strategy for their University.

S-Lab and the student Union have worked closely with Gabriel Paul Hibberd a ‘Forestry with Conservation’ student to develop his idea of planting fruit trees on campus to be implemented in autumn. This idea has been shared with students at Makerere University and it will be implemented collaboratively through the clubs and societies of both student unions.

Promoting Sustainability and Well-being across continents

Bangor University has reached the 2016 finals of the Green Gown Awards with all four of its entries. It is the first year that the University has entered these prestigious awards, run by The Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges (EAUC). The University joins over 100 other finalists representing a combined population of 1.5 million students and nearly quarter of a million staff who benefit from pioneering sustainability initiatives in teaching, leadership, research, and student life.

Delighted with making it to the finals Dr Einir Young the University’s Director of Sustainability, explained:

“It’s only been a year since the Sustainability Lab was established as the corporate focus of sustainability at Bangor University, acting as a hub and catalyst to bring sustainability to life in all aspects of what we do through our research, teaching and learning, public engagement and our campus affairs. It’s relatively early days on our journey towards becoming the Sustainable University so I was delighted to discover

that we’ve made it to the finals in four categories entered:

Best Facilities and Services for our #LoveYourHalls project

Best Community for what was a superb #LoveYourClothesBangor campaign Best Newcomer for the Sustainability Lab team – a great birthday present, arriving days after our first anniversary

Sustainability Leadership Award – I’m the nominated person but it’s actually a recognition of the commitment of the VC, the Deputy VC and the Executive for making this a priority for Bangor University.”

The awards ceremony will be at the University of Leicester on November 10th. So watch this space!

Four out of four for Bangor University in Green Gown Awards Finals

Undeb Bangor (Bangor University Students’ Union) has picked up not one or two but three Awards for their sustainability work.

The Students’ Union was awarded a highly coveted Gold Award in the NUS Green Impact Awards, having achieved the Gold Award twice in 2011 and 2013 and the Excellence Award twice in 2012-13 for their ‘Bangor Bikes’ scheme pilot and 2014-15 for Love Bangor Community Partnership. They were also named Union of the Year (non-commercial) Green Impact Awards in Liverpool.

The Students’ Union also grabbed a third National Award: The Green Impact Special Award. This award is an Environmental Innovation Award that gives union’s the opportunity to go beyond the actions described in the Green Impact criteria and use their creativity to make a real impact in their union, organisation or

community. Undeb Bangor’s entry was a joint student initiative to promote Sustainable Development through shared learning across continents; a partnership between Undeb Bangor and Makerere University Student Guild –Uganda.

Mair Rowlands, Bangor University Sustainability Officer from the Sustainability Lab who co-ordinates the Green Impact work with the Union said:

“We’ve achieved an amazing amount through Green Impact over the last 6 years, and Undeb Bangor have proved to be championing sustainability showing the way to Unions’ across the UK.

We’ve also gained national recognition for our international collaboration with Makerere University Student Guild winning the Green Impact Special Award. A collaboration project with the Sustainability Lab and Undeb Bangor

Bangor students’ union success at green impact awards 2016

working closely to develop a sustainability strategy aimed at improving students’ understanding and engagement with sustainability practices in Bangor and Makerere (Uganda).”

Dylan Williams Union Director said:

“This is yet another amazing achievement for Undeb Bangor;

we’ve proved that we are doing some excellent work around sustainability and as well as sustainability being one of our core values, it is entirely embedded within the culture of the Union staff, officers and students. We’re very proud of our progress and we’ve developed a national reputation for sustainability for which these awards speak for themselves”.

From the director’s chair

Celebrating the Sustainability Lab’s first birthday

The Sustainability Lab’s first year in existence has flown by and it’s incredible how much we’ve got to celebrate. This is the first Newsletter since Christmas and we’ve got plenty of activities and achievements by staff, students and the local community to report.

In the Christmas Issue I mentioned that the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act would become law on 1st April 2016. In response the University’s Executive discussed how the Act fits into the activity of the University:

““The University’s executive discussed

the Future Generations Act and the well-being goals and confirmed that the University should work towards adopting the principles of the Act. The Director of Sustainability and the Sustainability Lab will take a lead with the STG will having an overview responsibility for ensuring the five sustainability principles and the well-being goals of the act are embedded in the University’s structures. The Future Generations Act will be a permanent item on the STG agenda in the future”.

The Sustainable Development Principle and the five ways of working:We must all work in ways that ensures that the needs of the present are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own

own needs.

In order to do this there are five things to consider:

Long term – we need to balance addressing short term needs without jeopardising our ability to meet our long term needs

Prevention (is better than cure) – we need to predict potential problems and act to prevent them from happening.

Integration – asking ourselves how our institutional objectives impact the wellbeing goals and ensuring that all of them are addressed not the cherry-picked few.

Collaboration – and that means real collaboration internally across schools, colleges and disciplines and externally to meet the wellbeing goals

Involvement – everyone is invited to be part of the big project, reflecting the diversity of the institution and the uniqueness of the area in which we live.As we congratulate the Students’ Union on winning three awards in the NUS Green Impact Awards we’re pleased to announce that the Sustainability Lab has reached the short list for four awards in the Green Gown Awards 2016. The winners will be announced in a ceremony in Leicester in November.

These awards are for everyone – and in particular recognise the commitment shown by the Vice-

chancellor and the Executive in prioritising sustainability at Bangor University.

The Sustainability Lab team and I look forward very much to working with as

many of you as possible across the University in the coming year.

WE WOULD WELCOME YOUR INVOLVEMENT – JOIN US!

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