Go Green Universities Action Guide
- Step 1 - Meet, discuss and plan
- Step 2 - How green is your uni?
- Step 3 - Launching the campaign
- Step 5 - Holding a Green League Award Ceremony
- Step 4 - Keeping the pressure on
- How your University might respond
- Case study - Nottingham's Campaign
- Sample Campaign Timeline
- How to get your campaign noticed
- Sample letter to the VC
- Ask Richard: Go Green advice page
The key to winning this campaign is to show the Vice Chancellor, Principal or Director that there is a lot of pressure on him or her to make the University go green. To do this you need to get lots of students and staff members to sign the petition and wear the ribbon. Here are some ideas to help you do this at your University.
1. Run stalls to get students and staff to sign the leaf petition and wear the ribbon.
You can make Go Green ribbons very cheaply and simply, plus there are 300 Green Leaf petitions in your campaign pack. Make the ribbons up as you run your stall and have plenty of pens available for people to sign the petition.
To make your stall look more attractive and interesting cover the table in green cloth and get some green balloons. You should be able to get green cloth cheaply at your local 2nd hand shop. The leaf petitions can also make a really eye-catching display - why not turn them into an ever-expanding Go Green tree? To attract people to your stall use some of the other ideas like Go Green flags and street theatre.
For more ribbons and leaf petitions contact the P&P Support Office. Tel: 01865 245678 Email: gogreen@peopleandplanet.org
2. Go Green Art Attack and wrap trees in green crepe paper
Use crepe paper if the weather is good, but note that it goes soggy in the rain! Sugar paper is a good alternative. Both sorts of paper are easily available in most stationery shops. Cut it into lengths, stencil ‘Go Green’ on it and wrap it round trees and buildings. Make a stencil from old card. Alternatively, you could wrap huge Go Green ribbons around trees - that’s what the Environment Soc at Sussex did! Or how about creating an ‘art attack’ our of recycled materials like Reading’s Bottle Stunt or Aberdeen’s Can Dragon.
3. Go Green cakes and sweets
Decorate cakes with the Go Green message, or alternatively, food colouring is easy to buy in local grocers shops and supermarkets. Get some green gobstoppers to sell too! The green food tactic certainly helped Nottingham P&P - it took them just 3 months of green cake stalls to win the campaign!
4. Stick Go Green crepe paper on noticeboards
Make your Go Green notices stand out from the rest of the posters on noticeboards by running long strips of green paper with ‘Go Green’ on them across the bottom of noticeboards. Use crepe paper, sugar paper or strips of material for mini banners.
5. Make Go Green flags
The cheapest material to use, unless you manage to get lots at a 2nd hand shop, is silk lining material. It’s usually about £2 per metre. You need to make a sleeve at one end of the material by folding the material over and sewing, gluing or stapling it, so that you can put a bamboo pole up the sleeve and stick it in the ground.
The more environmentally friendly way to put the lettering ‘Go Green’ on the material is to cut the lettering out of black material and sew it on, or use acrylic paint. The easiest way is to make a stencil and spray paint it.
6. Dress in green from head to toe!
Need we say more … Just send us some photos!
7. Hang a banner out of your Union building
See if your University has got any white sheets it’s about to throw away from its halls of residence or try 2nd hand shops. A mix of 50/50 powder paint and PVA glue is the best way to make waterproof paint. Don’t worry that when you mix the powder paint and glue the colour is much paler than the powder colour - it will dry darker. Check out the banners which persuaded Warwick’s VC to Go Green
8. Go Green screen saver
Change the screensavers on the computers in your computer lab to display the ‘Go Green’ message, preferably in shades of green. You could also make images promoting your campaign using a graphics program and set them as the background ‘wallpaper’ on all the computers.
9. Go Green photo petition
This is an idea that worked really well for Birmingham P&P last year and in the StopEsso campaign. Make some big speech bubbles saying ‘Go Green’ and take photos of people holding the speech bubbles. To make it more interesting you could always have a couple of green wigs and green glasses. Print off all your photos and use them to lobby the University.
10. Make Go Green signs for signposts
Get some big pieces of old cardboard which have been used for packaging, e.g. at electrical goods and bike shops. Cut them into ‘arrow’ shaped signs, paint them green or stick green paper on them, write ‘Go Green’ in black and stick them on to the directions signs at your University.
11. Go Green street theatre.
Ask the juggling or drama societies to give you a hand to draw attention to your stall. Or, you know how in Covent Garden and in lots of high streets you get people dressed in silver from head to toe, and they stand there not moving for ages, and then do something - you could do this, but in green!
12. Stick a Go Green poster in every window
Print off lots of strips of green paper with ‘Go Green’ printed on them and get people to stick them in their windows. This can be done in any building on campus.
13. Get the student paper printed in green
Student press is a fantastic way of promoting the campaign to every student on campus and getting your message to the VC too, as he or she will get a copy of the paper. As well as making the most of the paper by getting photos and articles about the campaign in it, get the Students’ Union to print the paper in green ink (plus their usual black), or on green coloured paper for a special Go Green issue! The paper’s usual printers should definitely be able to print in green ink, sourcing green coloured and eco-friendly newsprint paper might be more tricky.
For top tips on how to write press releases, get good photos in the press, and everything else you need to know, use the P&P groups guide.
14. Go Green samba band
Is there a samba band at your uni? Or a string quartet? Ask them to dress in green and silver, and come and play when you have your stall. This will draw attention to your stall, and make a great picture for the student paper.
15. Use green face paint
16. Print your essays on green paper
Buy a ream of recycled, green coloured paper from your local stationery shop. Ask students to print their essays on it, to get the campaign message out to academic staff.
17. Chalk Go Green on your lecture hall blackboard
18. Chalk Go Green footprints on footpaths
19. Go Green reusable bags
Cambridge P&P made an arrangement with their local council and got hundreds of reusable cotton bags with campaign messages about their GreenElectricity campaign printed on them. To find out more contact: gogreen@peopleandplanet.org
20. Hold a public meeting
Get some good speakers in, and invite staff and students, including the University Vice Chancellor/Principal/Director to a meeting on the theme of greening the University and environmental sustainability. If you’ve got some really good external speakers coming in then set up an interview for the student paper so that they can be profiled and you can get the campaign into the paper in this way.
If you’ve got more campaign action ideas to make the university go green email: gogreen@peopleandplanet.org
Green Action Guide: Previous | Contents | Next