Home Climate Change Go Green Week Planning your Go Green Week

Plan a great Go Green Week

Shared Planet 2010 brainstorm workshop

Get planning

Go Green week action guide cover 2011

Make some wicked publicity materials using our downloadable images and templates

Picture of filming an interview

Dont forget to use the media

Everything you need to know to put on a great Go Green Week

Tops Tips!

  • Have regular meetings and keep in contact to check progress.
  • Draw up a list of tasks for each action and event and when they need to be done by.
  • Decide who is responsible for each task and make sure everyone is clear who is doing what. Share out the responsibility fairly to ensure no-one is overburdened.

A step-by-step guide

  • Step 1: Think about which of your Going Greener campaigns or transition projects you could to showcase to the community and get your projects ready to launch during Go Green Week. If you haven’t got a project lined up, now is the time to start planning!

  • Step 2: Look at your budget for Go Green Week. Can you apply for money from your union or does the university’s sustainability team have a budget for an awareness-raising week? Try and work out how much money you are going to raise for People & Planet against the cost of putting the events on.

  • Step 3 : Organise a meeting with your People & Planet group, the sustainability team or environmental manager and union exec to swap ideas and plans for Go Green Week activities. Universities and Unions often run their own sustainability weeks so it makes sense to work together on a joint week during February 2012. Staff can help make your Go Green Week a success by providing support, publicity and access to materials and room booking.

  • Step 4 : Brainstorm ideas for Go Green Week events. You want to attract more than just the usual suspects so make them fun, accessible and include a diverse range of activities to suit all tastes. Think now about how you will measure the impact of your activities and record numbers of people reached and carbon saved.

  • Step 5 : Work out your schedule and timings and book rooms or reserve spaces. It is best to do this as early as possible in order to avoid clashes. Think about holding your events in open public spaces where people gather anyway.

  • Step 6 : Get other societies or staff members involved. Think about what skills they might have and how they can help you put on events. For example, you could ask a lecturer who is researching climate change to give to give a talk or get the conservation society to help run a gardening workshop. Get them to bring their friends and colleagues along to the events to boost your numbers. Use the events as an opportunity to gather interest in your Going Greener projects and sign-up more members for your group.

  • Step 7: Plan how you will publicise your Go Green Week. Put up posters, hand out flyers, get the union to display information on their TV screens, create a Facebook event, use twitter and other social networking sites (remember to use the hashtag is #gogreenweek) send messages to the mailing lists of other societies and community groups, send invites to staff departments and ask lecturers to do shout-outs in lectures. We’ve created eye-catching templates and icons to help you to design your own posters.

  • Step 8: Remember to use the media. Send a press release to the student newspaper and ask them to include Go Green Week in their events listings. Talk to the student radio station and TV channel about covering the events or doing interviews. Also get in touch with your local papers, radio stations and local ‘what’s on’ guides. Check out our media guide and template press releases on the resources page

  • Step 9: Make sure you let the People & Planet support office know what you are planning and remember to send any photos or news articles to Lisa. You can also submit the details of your events, plot them on an interactive map on our website and check out what other groups are doing on our ‘whats on?’ page