Kay has just started with us and will be assisting the 80 strong Environmental Co-ordinator (EC) network with their environmental objectives.

The role of EC is integral to reducing University environmental impacts, contributing to the effective delivery of environmental objectives. They communicate environmental policy and provide a link between operational sustainability, schools and services, share good practice and encourage and motivate other staff.

ECs meet quarterly and we have a really strong group however; ECs feel they did not have enough support and many ECs comment that a building user groups (Eco teams) for ECs would be helpful.

For these reasons, the Sustainability Team have developed the EC Support Officer (ECSO) role.

Kay will be with us temporarily for 6 months and will be helping all of the ECs as well as pushing forward the EC Strategy.

Kay has already hit the floor running and is well embedded into the team and well on with the workload.

She came in this morning and immediately set off the medical school to help with preparations for Switch Off 2010.

Kay will be a great addition to our team and MWH‘s loss is our gain.

if you are an EC you can book Kay’s time here.

“Got. Got. Need. Need. Got. Got. Got. Got. Need. Need. Need.”

This is the high pitched cry you would have heard if you were listening carefully in any playground in the 80s as various groups of boys flicked through their Panini sticker collections trading stickers to complete their sticker albums.

Such as Fergie Circa 87:

Since then, stickers have always held a massive fascination for me and this has carried on in my working life. Jeanette Trewick , building facilities supervisor, calls me the “sticker man” due to the amounts of stickers I issue to cleaners for bins and the like.

Stickers are fun…but serious. Cheap. Flexible. Effective. Removable. Up datable. And are great for numerous other reasons….

On a professional level they are a million times better than the handwritten note or the laminated print out..which give facility users a terrible impression. I still see too much of the “home made sign” . ..and is mildly upsetting (for me!) especially when you go to great lengths to design a nice sticker!!

URGH!

A nice smart clean sticker applied straight and with no creases has high impact!

Retrieval Cues

Stickers are maybe best employed as retrieval cues.

Marketers use ‘retrieval cues’ to remind shoppers in supermarkets about the adverts they saw on TV the night before. If you are trying to change habits, it is no good convincing someone just once. You need to remind them exactly when they are taking the action you want to change.

Retrieval cues are any stimulus that helps us recall information in long-term memory. So you tell someone to “switch off” at the start of the year during a energy campaign, then 6 months later you can put up stickers reminding people of the campaign using images colours of branding to remind them of what they have learned already.

A few of the retrieval cues used on campus

Practical

Overall stickers are just another way of communicating your message. But, you can be as creative as you like . They are a fun, cheap way of delivering a bespoke message. They are flexible, can be put up and took down without any maintenance issues.

We all make sticky mistakes though….When it comes to making stickers for bins make sure they are vinyl wipe clean please! As tatty paper stickers soon fade and really spoil the moment!

The recycling service that we deliver at the University has been recognised nationally in the letsrecycle.com awards for excellence in Waste Management.

We received notification that we were in the running for an award and so a team from the University went down to London to in the hope that we might win!

The Estates Support Services, waste management infrastructure is delivered by over 350 people at the University. All of us could not go down so we had a prize draw to see who would go on the trip. The lucky winners were Muriel, Surinda, Trevor and Jason.

We had a great trip down on the train and did a brief bit of sightseeing before having a champagne reception and then taking lunch at the Landmark Hotel.

Trevor and Jason were representing the porting team. With Muriel and Surinda Sekon represented the cleaning teams and Rob Walton of GPS represented the Environmental Coordinators. And i went along… just to make sure no one got into any trouble on the mean streets of London City.

We were in the category for Commercial Recycling Champion. Unfortunately we did not get the overall winner but came a very respectable runners up. Shirley Kidd, BP North Sea HQ got the overall winner… so well done to Shirley!

We met a lot of people from the waste industry and had some drinks afterwards before making the journey home. A great day out was had by all….the streets were not paved with Gold though!

Tony Stevenson, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Planning and Resources) presented awards to Cleaning Team following the Newcastle University Environmental Awards 2010.

Below we see is Rob accepting the award for Best Recycling Performance. Rob’s team had the best average performing building with a rate of 62%. This is an outstanding achievement and on one day of an audit the Drummond building only produce 3 bags of general waste!!

And in this pic we see the team from the Agriculture building accepting their award for best Cleaning Team Performance for getting the Agric building from 28% to 72%!! This is something special as the 72% has been maintained into the next quarter.

Saw this and thought “eh?!”

A sell-out audience of 100 from all departments of the University attended the Newcastle University Environmental Awards 2010 at the Courtyard Restaurant last Friday (4th June 2010).

Hosted by Professor Tony Stevenson, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Planning and Resources) , the awards night was a evening of celebration to recognise excellence in the development, management and/or implementation of environmental initiatives at the University.

According to Professor Stevenson, the standard of this year’s entries was very high. “In the last few years, we have witnessed a continual rise in the improvement of our environmental impact. These awards are about recognising the good work that many people out in the departments are doing towards this aim.” he said.

The awards were presented by Vice Chancellor, Chris Brink

Categories

1) Outstanding individual contribution to the environment
This award celebrates the achievements of the University staff and student member, who best exemplifies a dedication to environmental issues within the University.

The staff award winner was Rob Dixon , with Maggie Tallerman and Susan McAllister getting the highly commended award.

Rob Dixon and VC Chris Brink

Maggie Tallerman and VC Chris Brink

Gemma Bone received the Outstanding individual contribution to the environment student award. Unfortunately she could not make it, as she is currently cycling through Turkey to raise awareness of climate change!

2) Outstanding environmental performance- group/ school/ department or business unit

This award is for the group who have shown they take the environmental impact of their operations seriously.

Winners- Library Green Group

The library green group won this award for the pride and dedication they have shown through out the year. New Rail and SCAN received highly commended awards

New Rail look happy with their award!

3) Best recycling performance

In partnership with Sita Waste Management. This trophy is given to the building which achieves the best recycling rate over the previous academic year. This was won by the Drummond building who have an average recycling rate of 62%- which is remarkable.

Andrew Young, Head of Administration, SAGE faculty accepts the award on behalf of staff and cleaners in the Drummond building

An award for the best performance from a cleaning team went to The Agriculture building cleaners, who took the Agriculture building from 29 to 72% recycling in a year!

Clare Rogers, Director of Estate Support Services, accepts the award on behalf of the Cleaning team at the Agriculture building.

The evening was also a chance for the Environmental Cordinators to catch up and have a bit of crack….

Ken and George share some opinions!

Elaine and Lyndsey (far right) wonder what to eat

Dermot Roddy, Science City Prof of Energy and Prof Paul Watson, Director of Digital Institute,

Susan Cook- Multi Tasking as usual.

Rob Bedford and Kelly Weightman share a joke

Tim makes a move for Matt’s sandwhich but he isn’t quick enough.

Thanks you to everyone who attended and made it a great evening. Especially Yvonne Lee for the military grade organisational skills and making sure everybody got there.

This blog post is about identifying mutual benefits and partnership building to encourage sustainable development. To make a good partnership you have to build rapport. To build rapport with someone you have to respect their needs, opinion and objectives. Partnerships between stakeholders are key to the achievement of sustainability.

Students are vital for sustainable development..in fact they are the Universities’ biggest opportunity to encourage sustainable development.

The universities based in the UK alone educate 2 million students per year- if those universities are teaching sustainable life skills, then this changes the ethos of nearly half an entire generation in just a decade!

Newcastle University promotes sustainability through its operations and a range of practical actions taken on campus to reduce environmental impact are increasingly linked to the curriculum.

We offer our composter for awareness raising, we lecture on sustainability issues and every year the Sustainability Team employ a graduate from the Clean Technology masters course.

This week we have two new student members who are working on important projects to reduce environmental impact: Adam White is working on the Eco campus EMS for the summer

Lucy Latham is investigating travel related emissions as part of the Carbon Management Plan.

For the first time this year we have been using the students to carry out audit work.

Ayo found a nice rose in the first bin they sampled!

In the forthcoming months, in partnership with the careers service as part of the graduate apprenticeship scheme, we are also employing a recent graduate to help with the Environmental Co coordinator network.

“It’s amazing what you find in the cardboard recycling.” said Ben Green

These types of partnership have numerous benefits. The students get real practical experience in environmental management, giving them a head start when they graduate. And the university gets a high quality piece of significant work which otherwise may not have been done due to resource pressures.

Ben Green, Adam White, Nisha Sheety try not to touch the nice car…

Sustainability requires active partnership working, so that the knowledge and skills emerging in the University community can have real impact beyond the campus as the students graduate and take their skills across the world.

just received the following pic from Deana Boulton the manager up at Richardson Road, halls of residence:

Accompanying the piccie was the following ‘A recycling string for cans – invented by students at Ricky Road for students!’

Not sure what they are getting…maybe it is a recycled firemans pole??

As usual the students are demonstrating that they are vibrant, creative, spontaneous and accepting of new ideas (and intelligent!).

What many people sometimes forget is that although students are ‘carefree’ they do care about the environment they live and work in.

It is always a challenge communicating to students and getting them to behave more sustainably on campus- they have alot going on (in their heads and social life) and our sustainability messgaes must compete with the tsunami of junk messages they get on a daily basis.

Therefore the approach must be as good as the best marketing! It should be FUN, clear and friendly. The approach needs to be innovative and fresh avoiding authoritarian and stuffiness.

here is an example from a campaign we delivered last year:

Information must be succinct and relevant. Therefore the tone and content of communications should change over time to suit trends.

And of course the student community is transient, so marketing has to be continuous.

And finally this was found on the roof of Ricky Rd accomodation last year..taken from a nearby park. Another example of student ingenuity. On viewing the photo Jennifer Molyneux remarked, “Do you think the students know something about climate change that we do not?”

I knew this already after organising many compost give aways over the last few years, but PEOPLE LOVE COMPOST!

Friday was the first day we gave away our campus processed compost

Here you can see some happy compost-ateers loading their bags up with the help of Paul.

It was really good to be able to give people compost for free as everyone seemed so passionate about it! We had about 20 visitors…and cleared about a half of compost!!…

All of the compost is produced by collecting the food waste from kitchens and commmon rooms across the campus. All of your banana peels, tea bags and sarnies get turned into compost by the Rocket composter.

One part of Paul’s job is to look after the Rocket and here we see him making some adjustments.

As long as staff and students want the material this offer will continue!

At the moment we have about 3/4 tonne of good/excellent grade compost left. I will update the grade of compost each week on the order form:

PS
I remember when my Dad used to take me to see Newcastle United, when i was very young and hearing about compost for the first time.

The police would be on horse back and you would see people putting the manure straight into bags and when I asked my Dad what they were doing it for, he told me about compost and growing leeks. I remember thinking they must really like growing leeks to put horse manure on it!

Our lovely Rocket composter is producing some amazing quality compost these days…Paul the operator has got the mix perfect.

I don’t want to shout about this too much but as a gesture of thanks, I want to make this material available to staff and students who require compost for gardens and allotments.

This will be a permanent offer which will continue indefinately. So no need to be in a mad rush to get it.

Please brings your bags with you. There are one or two spades for you to help yourself as well as a barrow.

You can collect compost from the Building Science Yard between 1.30-3.30pm every Friday. When you open this link ‘zoom’ out to get a better picture of where Building Science Yard is on campus.

To book your free compost please fill in the form here: