Our Commitment
Here at Roehampton Students’ Union, sustainability is at the heart of our work.
We recognise that all our activities, services and products have an impact on our environment, whether positive or negative.
We have determined our impacts and are actively working to make our Union better for you and for the wider community. You can view our SMART action plan here as to what we are working on.
Through many of our initiatives, to our everyday work, we try and ensure that we are making sustainable decisions that represent the interests of our students.
In this section, you will be able to catch a glimpse of our efforts and find out how you can get involved with sustainability at Roehampton Students’ Union.
Growhampton is a sustainability project with a big focus on food
Growhampton was established in 2013 following a successful funding bid of £230,000 from the NUS Green Fund to implement a two-year programme that would inspire and engage students, staff and the Roehampton community with sustainability issues.
The project has been a huge success and continues to grow year on year. Now, seven years later, the project boasts several awards and acknowledgments, but the most important factor is the amazing number of people who have engaged with the project.
We have created an edible campus with its own growing site; complete with polytunnel and several smaller growing areas spread throughout the university campus. With this, it has become a place where fresh fruit and vegetables are grown to offer students more opportunities to learn about healthy food and where it comes from.
The Growhampton team also operates The Hive Cafè. A unique venue built out of former shipping containers and opened in May 2014 by our local MP Justine Greening. The Hive Cafè enables organic, ethical and local food to be affordable and accessible.
It offers a simple seasonal menu that uses produce grown on campus by the Growhampton team and is one of the best cups of coffee you will get in southwest London.
The Hive Cafe is an ethical café selling a simple, seasonal and tasty menu that includes some produce coming straight from our edible campus.
The Hive and the adjacent courtyard are decorated using funky upcycled materials including;
Scaffold board tables and Espresso counters, Apple crate stools, Scorched cable reel coffee tables, Salvaged plastic crate seating and our stunning cedar coffee tables made from offcuts of the trees found on Roehampton's beautiful grounds.
The cafè itself is made from two repurposed shipping containers.
Click here to find out more about the history and vision of The Hive Cafè.
Community Partners
Regenerate is a local charity that works with young people and families living in Roehampton and estates across London.
It is a charity that helps transform lives and communities from inside and out, that we have been working with since 2014 to stock sandwiches in The Hive from the charity's enterprise The Feel Good Bakery.
The Feel Good Bakery is a response to the need to provide support and employment to young people who have been caught up in negative situations and seeks to train, coach and employ them as they turn their backs on gang life and crime.
The Feel Good Bakery partners with grassroots organisations that do amazing work with children living in extreme poverty around the world.
When you buy a sandwich, you are personally buying a meal for one of these children. Since its inception, The Hive Cafè has helped provide over 100,000 meals to children living in extreme poverty.
More recently, Regenerate have partnered with Heathmere Primary School and Rackets Cubed to help respond to the Covid-19 pandemic by setting up and coordinating a weekly Community Box scheme.
The Roehampton Community Box is distributed to more than 200 local families in Roehampton and Putney.
The Growhampton team donate fresh, nutritional produce to the scheme. produce that is grown here on-campus to help make a difference in reaching a large community of lower-income households in the surrounding area.
So far, Growhampton have donated over 300KG of produce to the Roehampton Community Box scheme.
RSU are key partners of the Roehampton Forum. The major concerns of the Roehampton Forum are:
- The health of the people of Roehampton, especially the very elderly.
- The maintenance and improvement of the local Housing Stock
- The level of crime suffered by the people of Roehampton
- The lives of the children in the area
- Economic improvement of the area
NUS Green Impact SU
Green Impact Students' Unions is the flagship sustainability accreditation scheme by the National Union of Students, helping students' unions to green their campus, curriculum and community.
Last year, Roehampton Students’ Union achieved an Excellent status and this is something we hope to achieve again in the near future.
RSU Sustainability Survey
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