The Sustainability awards, hosted 19 November, was a fantastic celebration of all the hard work of those who have helped to make our University more sustainable.
Historically an awards event to celebrate our Green Impact teams, this year saw the addition of our LEAF-accredited labs. We also had a full line up of Special Awards, which are an added element to Green Impact and celebrate the achievements of individuals and groups who have gone the extra mile with sustainable impact and action.
Green Impact is an accreditation University staff can engage in to embed sustainability into what they do, helping to facilitate a sustainable culture at the University. This year, all eight awardees were Silver and above, with most teams achieving Platinum.
Our Silver awards went to LTEC with particular achievements being their work in embedding sustainability into the PGCAP, helping to support and expand the work of education for sustainable development at the University. Our second Silver was awarded to Emerald (Green Joule) particularly highlighting their work in adapting Joule house to meet the University Net Zero targets.
Our Gold awards went to RKE particularly recognising their engagement of the PG students through the community growing space, engaging them in sustainability in a fun way which also helps support wellbeing. Green Machine (our Sports Centre) also achieved Gold, continuing their Green Impact work in making the Sports Centre operate more sustainably.
We were thrilled to award the most teams with Platinum, the highest Green Impact level attainable. Congratulations to Crescent House and their work in engaging their team in sustainability and in enhancing their garden area to support biodiversity and wellbeing. To Media City for their continued dedication to sustainability and intertwining this with wellbeing. To The Arts Collection Team, who have worked hard to engage all their partners in sustainability through collaboration. And finally to our Library, Careers and Enterprise Team, who have done an excellent job throughout the year to actively increase their sustainability knowledge and awareness which they have then shared with University staff and students.
We heard from Nick Baguley, during the awards ceremony, about the Race Across the Library event. This event creatively engaged students in sustainability informing them of sustainable actions via a series of challenges while getting to know the library. The Race Across the Library event earned the Library, Careers and Enterprise team the Innovation for Engagement Special Award.
Having begun the implementation of LEAF this year, we hosted our first LEAF awards as part of the Sustainability Awards. We were happy to award all three Bronze LEAF accredited labs during the ceremony, celebrating the hard work that Bethan Samphire-Noden, Nicky Morgan, Adam Sharples, Cara Tobin, Jajati Mandal and Matt Jones had done in achieving LEAF accreditation. We’re looking forward to having more of our labs attain the accreditation and seeing our already Bronze level LEAF awardees attain Silver with their continued sustainability efforts.
LEAF was brought to the University by Matt Jones, who has since worked hard to engage and implement sustainability in our lab spaces. His work with LEAF alongside his efforts to embed sustainability into his teaching and through his work informing and engaging others to do the same was recognised with the Sustainability Hero Special Award.
Alongside Matt Jones and The Library, Careers and Enterprise team, three other Special Awards were given, which celebrated the dedication to sustainable action and engagement.
The Environmental Improvement Special Award was presented to Divya Patel for her work in developing the University’s Carbon Literacy programme, used to educate staff and students about the climate crisis. Through this training, staff and students are able to take concrete action in reducing their carbon emissions and therefore environmental impact.
Michael Christopher received the Community Action Special Award for his dedication in leading and supporting our Community Growing Space. Michael has enhanced the space to include even more plants and supported other volunteers with gardening action.
We also awarded Sustainability Masters student and Chair of the Sustainability Society, Saadan Hussain our Student Leadership Special Award for his dedication to sustainability at the university alongside his studies.
The awards were catered for by the Eat and Drink team who produced a delicious and sustainable menu. Entirely plant based, the food looked to utilise in season ingredients and made use of surplus food from previous events.
We would also like to give a special thank you to MakerSpace and especially to Kostas Zochios for his help in creating the LEAF awards. Designed by Anna Romachney, our Sustainability Engagement Officer, the award celebrated the work of labs for sustainability. Using acrylic offcuts from SAMCT student projects from across the year, the awards colourfully and sustainably celebrated the LEAF achievements so far.
Registration is now open for this year’s programme. If you’re interested in getting involved in Green Impact, LEAF or other sustainable initiatives then get in touch with the Sustainability Team – sustainability@salford.ac.uk