Green Impact Awards 2023

The Green Impact Awards bring together students and staff in green campuses, curriculums and communities.

Many congratulations and thank you to everyone who has supported sustainability at the University of Worcester this year!

In July Dr Tim Jones, PVC Students, officiated over our Annual Sustainability Celebration Awards Ceremony where we distributed eighteen different sustainability awards under our Green Impact programme. These are the winners:

Special Awards

Staff Sustainability Hero: Jodie Collins
Student Sustainability Hero: Briagh Harker, Megan Ashbury, Nimmy Ann Matthews
Student Leadership: Gabija Švedaitė
Innovation for Engagement: DPrAS Team

Sustainable Accommodation Volunteer Awards

Congratulations to our Sustainable Student Accommodation Volunteers who have achieved their Gold volunteering award for their dedication to expanding their sustainability knowledge, sharing their learnings and advocating for sustainable living amongst the study body.

Elisha Parkes
Zoe Dempsey

All winners will be entered into SOS-UK’s National Special Awards which are announced later in the year.

Platinum Award

Department of Professional Administrative Services – Digital Carbon Footprint project

Created a set of messages regarding how to reduce digital carbon footprints and shared around the university in different way. Measured behaviour change in DPrAS staff to measure the impact of the messaging. Ran an online awareness day in May to encourage an ‘inbox detox’.

Gold Award

Vice Chancellors Office - Fairtrade

Raised further awareness and knowledge of sustainability lifestyle choices, with a particular focus on Fairtrade, within the university and wider community. Worked to retain the university’s Fairtrade status.

GI-WBS Team

Continued work to understand the business school students’ perspectives about the SDGs and climate change through surveys. They identified opportunities for integrating and engaging with the SDGs into the curriculum and beyond.

Silver Award

IoT Sensor Team

Investigated how data from room climate sensors could be used for monitoring, prediction and improved energy efficiency. Studied a building management system and worked with its management team to advise on data extraction and analysis.

Nature Connectedness in Education

Increased nature awareness at the university by providing a weekly (Wildlife on Wednesdays) post with information spotlighting an animal or plant species. Posts on Blackboard reached 163 teacher training students and 18 School of Education staff members. The project gained international attention and was presented at the Teachers in Europe conference 24-26.4 2023 in Zwolle, The Netherlands.

Flood Education Programme

Delivered a flood education workshop to 2 Worcester primary schools, to convey the importance of flood preparedness, especially in a world of such a changing climate. Pupils were given flood action plans to take away and fill out to see how their families would respond to a flood. The team started mapping intergenerational impact from this to further outreach the programme.

ESD Magazine

Developed ESD knowledge, values and engagement in IoE Secondary team through a designated magazine distributed to 100 partnership schools and 1000’s of teachers. A mentor map was given to all subject and professional mentors. Held CPD training sessions for staff.

Bronze Award

IT Sustainability

The team has continued to prioritise and integrate sustainability across their work through setting up an IT Sustainability Group and Sustainability Objective. Further areas of focus have been through progressing print & copy practices, IT service contracts &

Flexitarian Diets

Encouraged people to adopt a more flexitarian diet through informative posters and planning sustainability kitchen sessions. Promoted sustainable cooking using local vegetables and meat. Looked into if increased education around sustainable eating encourages it.

Infant Feeding Group

Set up a student-led infant feeding support group to support postnatal wellbeing and increase breastfeeding rates. Worked with volunteers from the NHS and external organisations to help set up the groups. The project is still in its infancy but with more time and input can grow.