On Tuesday 13 June 2023, the University of Birmingham hosted 200+ colleagues and students at the Sustainability Open Forum to celebrate all who took part in this year’s Green Impact Challenge. Colleagues and teams won 29 Green Impact Awards: 15 Gold, 6 Silver, and 8 Bronze.
By taking part in the Green Impact Challenge, colleagues saved an estimated 130 tonnes of CO2 through activities including, adopting more sustainable travel to work habits, creating collection points for hard-to-recycle waste items, reducing the number of individual deliveries by suppliers, and encouraging biodiversity in green areas across the Edgbaston campus.
Congratulations to everybody who won an award. It was fantastic to come together with colleagues and students to celebrate the many and varied sustainability initiatives and commitments across the University. We hope that many other colleagues will take part in our Green Impact scheme, this coming year as our path to net zero is a shared responsibility, and I look forward to working with colleagues and students in achieving this goal.
Charmaine Morrell, Head of Sustainability
One of two teams to win multiple awards Winterbourne House and Gardens secured both Silver and Gold; the team successfully raised awareness among staff and volunteers about the importance of conservation in all aspects of Winterbourne’s operation.
The Healthcare Technologies Institute was also recognised with a Gold award. This year it introduced facilities to create digital papers instead of printing, used recycling schemes for plastic-ware in labs - such as pipette tip box recycling - tracked chemicals to save duplicating items, and told new starters about ways they can get involved in sustainability during inductions.
At the Open Forum, alongside the awards ceremony, staff and students welcomed the newest additions to the Sustainability Team: Charmaine Morrell, Head of Sustainability, Dr Julia Myatt, Director of Sustainability Education, and Professor David Hannah, Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Sustainability).
Green Impact is a United-Nations-recognised programme that promotes sustainable practices in organisations across the world. More than 1500 organisations take part in the awards, and The University of Birmingham is one of 17 UK universities to take on the challenge in 2023.
To find out how to get involved with Green Impact and other sustainability activities at the University, please visit https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/university/social-responsibility/get-involved.aspx