Tag Archives: Green Impact

Green Impact Launch and LEAF update!

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At Newcastle University, we recognise that the climate crisis must be addressed communally, and we cannot meet the sustainability targets set out in our Climate Action Plan without the efforts of all our colleagues and students.

Green Impact and LEAF are two amazing programmes available for our colleagues at the university, with the opportunity for participants to win bronze, silver, and gold awards for sustainability. Earlier this month, the Environment Awards recognised and celebrated the achievements of our colleagues and students over the past year, with 11 teams receiving Green Impact awards and 10 teams receiving LEAF awards. A massive congratulations to those teams!

So, read on to find out how you can get involved in the next programme of Green Impact or LEAF, and play your part in increasing environmental sustainability on campus!

Green Impact

Green Impact is a United Nations award-winning programme which promotes environmentally and socially sustainable behaviour across organisations. At Newcastle University, colleagues can sign up to Green Impact and create teams within their work area, with actions assigned to complete in the online toolkit. The toolkit is aligned with the UN Sustainability Goals, with themes such as energy, water, waste, travel, biodiversity, communication, and wellbeing.

This is a great opportunity to improve your knowledge on environmental issues and contribute to meaningful sustainable change in your workplace, whilst collecting some awards to display!

How to get involved:

  1. Sign up to Green Impact online from the 11th of November.
  2. Chat to your colleagues in your work area about Green Impact teams and either join one that’s already been created or create a new team.
  3. Email sustainable-campus@newcastle.ac.uk to join the Green Impact Teams channel, and chat to other teams!
  4. Work through your assigned actions. Each action grants a certain number of points which then add up to the bronze, silver, and gold awards.
  5. Our friendly student auditors will come round to check your progress later in the year.
  6. The Environmental Awards will be held in June, with engraved recycled slates for teams that made it to Bronze, Silver, or Gold.

LEAF

Our laboratories are essential in enabling the groundbreaking research conducted at Newcastle University, and scientific research is vital in mitigating the climate crisis. However, traditional laboratory practices can come with unintended environmental impact (Freese et al, 2024).

LEAF, or the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework, is an online platform for laboratory users designed by UCL to improve the sustainability and efficiency of laboratories. Similar to Green Impact, lab teams work through sustainability actions to reduce waste, water, and energy along with improving the efficiency of other resources. There is an upcoming refresh of the LEAF actions and criteria, so sign up now to be a part of this updated programme.

Image: Diversity of Life Lab Session (Biology & Zoology). Photo Credit: Chris Bishop.

How to get involved?

  1. Sign up on the LEAF login portal
  2. Register with your institutional email, then login and either join an existing lab, or request a new lab (if your lab is not already listed).
  3. After your account is verified, work with your team through the bronze, silver, and gold criteria. Members of the Sustainability Team will assess your progress along the way, and certificates will be awarded at the Environmental Awards!
  4. Every year, progress to a higher certificate, or re-audit to keep your accreditation.

Key dates:

  • Relaunch of Green Impact on Monday the 11th of November
  • Criteria Update of LEAF on Monday the 11th of November.
  • Green Impact Launch Webinar on Thursday the 14th of November, Sign up here.
  • LEAF teams channels launch on Friday the 1st of November.
  • Celebrating Success Environmental Awards: June (date to be announced later).

Thank you for reading, and we look forward to welcoming some new teams to Green Impact and LEAF this year!

References

Freese, T., Elzinga, N., Heinemann, M., Lerch, M.M. and Feringa, B.L., 2024. The relevance of sustainable laboratory practices. Rsc Sustainability, 2(5), pp.1300-1336.

Celebrating World Environment Day at Newcastle Univeristy

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This Wednesday was World Environment Day – an initiative run by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) since 1973 to recognise the beauty and importance of the natural world and to fight for its preservation and restoration. The programme is important for its ability to raise awareness and bring together solutions for a range of environmental concerns, and each year’s events focus on a particular theme.

Here at the University, in addition to the cutting-edge research of our academic colleagues, a wide variety of work is done year-round to help reduce environmental impacts both in our institution and beyond. All sorts of teams and individuals contribute to these efforts and so, to recognise this work and celebrate World Environment Day, the University hosts an Environment Awards Ceremony each year. This year’s awards have unfortunately had to be postponed (hence a delayed blog!), but we thought it’d be remiss to not highlight at least some of the sustainable action that’s taken place in our University over the last year!

Image: An aerial shot of the campus-adjacent Leazes Park, bathed in the late afternoon sun. Credit: Elemental Photography.

Image: An aerial shot of the campus-adjacent Leazes Park, bathed in the late afternoon sun. Credit: Elemental Photography.

LEAF

Run by University College London, the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF) is a programme designed to help laboratories in a variety of different disciplines to reduce the environmental impacts of their work. We’ve supported LEAF here at the University for several years now and I’m happy to announce that we’ve seen a number of new labs signing up and receiving awards this year!

Since last June, 10 new lab groups (some consisting of multiple different labs) have signed up across the Faculties of Medical Sciences, and Science, Agriculture and Engineering. Additionally, in this same period, we’ve seen a range of labs gain awards at different levels across the University for their sustainable action. Throughout our organisation, we have gained:

  • 5 new Bronze awards,
  • 1 new Silver award, and
  • 4 new Gold awards!

These achievements reflect the hard work done by technicians, researchers, and lab users and they demonstrate:

  • An impressive waste reduction in labs, especially those achieving Gold.
  • A commitment to reuse wherever possible, including working with suppliers to reduce waste.
  • The sharing of equipment and supplies with other labs in the same buildings.
  • The efficient use of equipment, including influencing all lab users to adopt sustainable practices in their work.
  • The non-stop encouragement to those around them to get involved!

Green Impact

This year also saw the launch of our first ever Green Impact programme at the University! Over the last half year, teams from throughout the University have been implementing sustainable changes in their varied workplaces to keep environmental action high on the agenda and make real savings in resource use.

This initial programme has seen involvement from senior leadership and teams as diverse as maintenance colleagues and lab researchers! Thanks to their efforts, we’ve seen some brilliant progress in the new year and I’m happy to announce that teams have achieved multiple bronze, silver, and gold awards across the University!

Continuing climate action

Work is continually progressing to improve the sustainability of our campus and operations. A list of important steps taken in our 17 years of sustainable action so far can be found here and you can also explore information specific to a variety of different environmental themes on our sustainable campus website.

A huge thank you to everyone involved in LEAF, Green Impact, and all the other sustainability projects that have achieved so much this year. If you want to find out more about our work, sign up to the Sustainability Network newsletter by emailing us, have a look at our Play your Part pages, or continue to explore our variety of blog pieces, covering everything from sustainable waste to farming for the future!

Green Impact: Grassroots sustainability at your university

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Green Impact is a UNESCO award-winning programme tailored towards promoting socially and environmentally sustainable practices across a wide range of organisations, including public sector bodies such as our university. The programme, run by SOS-UK, works with colleagues (organised into teams) to foster sustainable action in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and we in the Sustainability Team have been working hard to launch a bespoke version for Newcastle University! So, if you want to get involved with the University’s crucial net zero by 2030 target and help reduce energy use, water use, waste and more, read on!

Image: An aerial shot of King’s Quad. Credit: Elemental Photography

How does it work?

Green Impact is designed to be easy to set up and get stuck into and SOS-UK have even launched a new online toolkit for the programme to let you intuitively track your progress, compare your teams scores (only if you want!), and see your next targets.

There are 5 steps to Green Impact’s timeline of sustainable action:

  1. Sign up to Green Impact online.
  2. Chat to your colleagues about Green Impact teams in your work area and either join one that’s already been created or create your own (feel free to give the team a fun name!).
  3. Work through your assigned actions. Each action grants a certain number of points which then stack up towards the Bronze, Silver, and Gold action awards (50, 100, and 150 points respectively)!
  4. Our friendly student auditors will come round to check your progress in mid-May.
  5. An awards ceremony will be held in June, featuring engraved slates (recycled!) for teams that made it to Bronze, Silver, or Gold, and certificates for everyone who took part!

Why should you join?

  • Create meaningful sustainable change in your workplace: the work you and your team do will help to limit energy and water use, boost environmentally responsible planning of workplace projects, improve reuse and reduce waste, save budgets, and more! In other words, your efforts will actively contribute to sustainable development and Net Zero progress at Newcastle University. Additionally, you’ll find you can apply some Green Impact actions to your personal life too if you want to help save on bills and further reduce your environmental impact.
  • Improve your knowledge and skills on pressing environmental issues: Green Impact offers workshops and skills development opportunities to provide insights and understanding on sustainability and social and environmental justice!
  • Meet like-minded colleagues and boost your teamworking skills: the programme is highly collaborative and social with the joint effort required to complete actions and plenty of chances to network with environmentally conscious colleagues from across the University.
  • Collect your awards! Your sustainability work will be recognised at the Celebrating Success: Environment Awards in June!

Key dates

There’s a range of exciting events and dates coming up! Plus, keep an ear out for the further activities and sessions we’ll organise throughout via our Sustainability Network newsletter.

  • Green Impact session at Experience Week (come along for updates, news, and further information!): 11th March, 10-11am.
  • Deadline for actions (complete as much as possible before this!): 17th May
  • Celebrating Success: Environment Awards: June.
  • Join: right now! Or whenever you feel like it – the signup process is easy, just follow this link.
Image: Screenshot of the Green Impact online toolkit login page. Credit: author.