► Environmental

The environment is something that we take extremely seriously here at Roehampton Students’ Union and we try our best to lead by example. More importantly, we aim to engage all our members, if all 8,000 of us took simple steps this will have a significant impact on the environment.

Whether that involves us approaching students during their lunch breaks during Go Green Week or Fair Trade Fortnight, encouraging green living in halls of residence during Flat Rep training, employing good environmental practice in the office, running workshops in the Allotment via our activities zone, or occasionally, singing ‘Earth Song’ at Acoustic Night. Either way, there is an underlying principle of ethics in the work we do. These pages contain further information on our commitments.  

The RSU is committed to good and clean environmental practise and everything is summarised in our environmental policy, you can download a copy here

WHAT RSU DO
RSU are continually trying to embed good practices, and below are a few examples relating to our own environmental impacts:

Energy Consumption: To try and reduce the amount of energy we have taken some measures to reduce the amount of energy we use these include:

-          Supporting the ‘Switch Off’ Initiative

-          Having sensor lighting fitting into our office and ensuring all other lighting is Energy Efficient

-          Having a shut down procedure during vacations

-          Having our notice boards being fitted with timers so they are not illuminated all the time.

Waste: RSU are continually looking to reduce the amount of waste we create and below are a number of steps we have taken in recently.

-          Reduce the number of copies we produce of Fresh Newspaper and review it for each edition

-          Reduce the number of posters we produce and distribute around campus.

-          Encourage all our staff members to recycle and have recently introduced a ‘Bin the Bin’ scheme throughout the offices.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
With over 8,000 students if we all played a small part it would have a massive environmental impact especially if you spread your good habits to others. Here are some practical things you can do this year:

Student Switch Off - a not-for-profit campaign encouraging students to save energy in University halls of residence, the basic principle is to ensure you turn of your electrical appliances when you are not using them. For more information and competitions please visit www.studentswitchoff.co.uk if you would like to get more involved or like some information please contact Danni Pafford our Switch Off coordinator Danni@studentswitchoff.org

Part-time Carnivore – Meat lovers are making a real difference by enjoying good meat in moderation. Join them by choosing the part-time carnivore option and see how much land and CO2 you can save. Visit www.parttimecarnivore.org

Recycling – The university have invested in recycling bins throughout the university and halls of residence, the cleaning staff have all been trained and plenty of instructions and information, if you live in halls and have any queries ask you flats reps. All the systems are in place and we need you guys to ensure you use the correct bins and encourage others to do the same. Together we can drastically reduce how much we send to landfill.

 

 

 

OTHER THINGS YOU CAN DO

Join People & Planet/ Student Activism Groups
Typically, environmental campaigns such as Go Green Week are facilitated by the RSU People & Planet Society, and often tied back into the RSU by the societies President, who is usually the RSU Environmental Officer. The society's membership is predominantly student led however; there is also collaboration with Sabbatical officers, lecturers and other University staff, which make it one of the RSU's most productive student bodies.

People & Planet's former successes include the lobbying of the Vice Chancellor and the University's Senior Management to employ a full-time Environmental Manager and the introduction of the Allotment last year. If you want to find out more then contact Fern Luker (People & Planet Society President) on lukerf@roehampton.ac.uk or join the Facebook group.

 

 

Documentary from Go Green Week 2008:

The Allotment
Developing an Allotment on campus was the aim of Go Green Week 2009, this project was very much lead by Simon Cox (at the time RSU Fair Trade Officer). The Estates Department were extremely supportive by identifying an area that could be used, purchasing a shed, tools and further support come from a number of University staff becoming an integral part of the Allotment Society. The Allotment is based at Froebel behind the Davies building and the hard work of all those involved is paying dividends with produce already being grown and much more on its way. The Allotment is also being used to educate fellow students where various workshops have been included in the ‘Give It A Go' programme.

Roehampton Allotment on Facebook 

Short video made by the 'RU Outdoors? Allotment Society' on 10:10:10 day:




PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
To ensure we are making as much as appositive impact we are continually looking at ways we can improve the environment and we have 2 projects that the RSU are at the early stages of specifically looking into.

Student Environmental Champions – Based on the same model that the University uses for staff we want to invite interested students to training and follow up network sessions and as champions you will play a key role in promoting local environmental awareness’.

Bike Pool – We are at the early stages of investigating whether we can invest in and maintain a Bike Pool, we would love to provide students the opportunity to jump on a bicycle and not only benefiting the environment but also your health.

Environmental Staff
The University has its own Environmental Manager, Jonathan Horner, who works closely with our new Energy Manager Manon Morel and Jesse Scharf our Greener Living Assistant to ensure the University is on top of all relevant green issues.Working alongside the University, the Union also has its own Environmental Officer, Fern Luker. RSU have an excellent relationship with Estates and the Environmental team, they are always listening to student ideas.

Green League Tables
Roehampton has been ranked as the UK’s 41st most environmentally friendly University in the recently published People & Planet Green League Table. The scheme sees a total of 133 university’s compete based on environmental factors such as Fair Trade status, the institutes environmental policy, ethical investment, carbon management and student and staff engagement – in which we scored excellently! It is worth noting that our previous standing in the table was at number 80, evidence that we have brought about a lot of good change over the past 12 months!