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Let's be friendsGo Green Universities Action Guide
- Step 1 - Meet, discuss and plan
- Step 2 - How green is your uni?
- Step 3 - Launching the campaign
- Step 4 - Keeping the pressure on
- Step 5 - Holding a Green League Award Ceremony
- How your University might respond
- Case study - Nottingham's Campaign
- Sample Campaign Timeline
- How to get your campaign noticed
- Ask Richard: Go Green advice page
- Resources for Go Green Universities
Find out how green your university is
Before you launch the campaign it will help if you know how green the university already is. There are 4 key institutional factors that the campaign is calling on all universities to implement.
The active, public support of senior university management — for a programme of environmental performance improvement. The support of the Vice-Chancellor or Principal is particularly important.
Full-time staff dedicated to environmental management — developing objectives, setting priorities, and significant, timebound targets to fulfil them.
A written, publicly available environmental policy — to provide a formal demonstration of intent regarding environmental performance improvement, and against which to compare practice.
A comprehensive review to investigate all the environmental impacts of the institution — so that current impacts are measured, potential improvements are identified and performance is monitored.
Has your university already got any of these in place? What is it doing to manage its environmental impacts? By using the People & Planet Green League and searching the university website you should be able to answer the following questions without getting drawn into a process of meetings with the university:
Has the university …
- got any full-time staff dedicated to environmental management?
- conducted a comprehensive environmental review?
- developed a publicly available, written environmental policy?
- demonstrated the active, public support of senior management for environmental management?
- developed a green purchasing policy?
- developed a transport strategy aimed at reducing reliance on the private car?
- got a target for reducing energy use?
- got a target for purchasing a certain percentage of renewable energy?
- got a target for reducing water use?
- got a target for reducing waste for landfill or increasing recycling?
This information will be a useful base for your campaign. You will be able to use it at Step3A when you write to the university and send the report, and at Step 3B when you are running stalls, encouraging students to take action to support the campaign. You will be able to demonstrate local knowledge about the university’s environmental management.
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