Hi, Roehampton! I’m Laoise Holohan; your 2nd year Classical Civilisations Programme Rep, Vice President of Roehampton Amnesty Society, the Bystander you catch having a little boogy when Justin comes on at BOP, and maybe your next Environmental and Sustainability Officer.
My intentions are as follows:
- Be an accessible officer, ready to hear all your fantastic ideas and campaigns
- Run events and seminars that can answer common questions like “how do I live sustainably on a budget”, “what resources are available”, and “how can I make a bigger difference?”
- Bring in speakers from environmental and sustainability organisations
- Work with Growhampton, who already do amazing work on-campus, to get students involved (everyone should try to volunteer with the chickens at least once to get the true Roehampton experience)
- Help you get involved on and off campus with different projects and organisations
- Lead groups in Climate Strikes and, if there’s enough interest, into climate marches in central London
- Work with the University to develop and ensure their sustainability policies, so that we can all feel proud of Roehampton and study at a university we know cares about student interest.
As Vice President for Amnesty, I worked with my president, Briony Slater, to get the RSU to mandate lobbying the University to declare a climate change emergency. For a two-month-old society we were pretty proud. We have received amazing support from our student council; we hope to continue working with them in the future on climate change matters, and as sustainability officer I could offer more help in that role. The University has also agreed to work with us and talk directly with students to find out what you think can be improved on campus.
Climate change is a scary, impending nightmare that has come to the forefront of our everyday lives. As your sustainability officer my main goal would be to make the environment and sustainability less daunting and more fun. Any big company is doing more damage in one hour than you will do in your whole life, so my aim is not to make everyone in Roehampton the perfect climate change warrior- that just leads to anxiety. What I hope is to help you make positive, simple, and effective changes in your everyday lives. What we’re really achieving by this is showing the government and corporations that public opinion is shifting, and that sustainability needs to be a priority for them.
Best wishes and happy studying!