4. Green Themed Coffee Mornings
Most people love (Fairtrade) tea, coffee or cake. If they don’t love tea, coffee or cake they will probably love the idea of taking a 5 minute break from work!
Enter the coffee break. Built into the culture of many smaller departments, stopping work together once a day or once a week allows the opportunity for relaxed but productive interaction – The perfect opportunity to raise the profile of Green Impact.
The Humanities Research Institute (HRI) have found this to be very successful. Whilst emailing people in the past had not had much of a response, the opportunity to give a short update presentation and speak to people face to face has resulted in much greater engagement. Each coffee morning update can then be followed with a short email recapping key green progress in the department.
Could your department have a Green Impact coffee morning?
5. Green Tips
This year student services have 100% participation in Green Impact with an impressive 15 teams taking part. They have many secrets to their success including giving Green Impact a high profile at every level of the department. At the start of each monthly student services briefing they display a Green Impact tip of the month which the Director of Student Services always makes reference to during the meeting. These tips cover a wide variety of actions including for example:
- Ordering sustainable catering
- Turning off lights
- Attending SusSEd
- Refusing bottled water
- Promoting sustainable travel
A simple PowerPoint slide like this:
6. Swap Shops
Unwanted presents? Changing your wardrobe? Don’t just throw things away: swap them, give them, sell them. Research has found that more than two-thirds of textile waste in Britain is sent to landfill, equating to around 1.4 million tonnes of material. Swap shops can be fun, topical (after Christmas etc.) and of course environmentally friendly. They can also provide a generic excuse to raise the profile of Green Impact within your department.
Student services, the Arts Tower and ACSE have all held successful swap shops this year and donated any leftover items to the university’s Bring It Don’t Bin It scheme, and local charity shops, ensuring absolutely nothing went to waste.
Fun and sustainable. Perfect.
More tips tomorrow.