footprint - University of Central Lancashire

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Green Team GreenTeam@uclan.ac.uk Continual Improvement The University has now maintained the international standard ISO14001 for its Environmental Management System (EMS) for almost 3 years. At a recent external audit we received praise for the maturity of our system and working practices established to monitor, manage and reduce the significant environmental aspects of our activities, products and services. During this period we’ve seen awareness of these issues and management techniques increase dramatically with 82% of staff in Services and 49% of staff in Schools taking a 30 minute introductory training session either online or in a classroom. Environment and Sustainability Manager Sarah Buckland said “as a result we can now competently handle any small potentially polluting incidents that occur and there is a much smaller risk of them happening in the first place”. To find out more about how you can help the University continually improve its environmental performance: • Sign up for the ‘Environmental Management at UCLan: An Introduction’ training • Set up a Green Impact Team • Contact the greenteam@uclan.ac.uk directly with suggestions or questions. Resource Use • Turn it off • Report to FM Helpdesk Land Development & Buildings • BREEAM • Biodiversity • Refurbishment • Micro generation Pollution Prevention • Plan • Storage • Disposal Waste • Reduce • Reuse • Recycle Procurement • Ethics • Lifecycle Costs • Contract Conditions Travel • Smarter • Virtual • Active UCLan has re-achieved Carbon Trust Standard for the Third Time UCLan was part of the first Carbon Trust Standard Pathfinder Certification in 2008 achieving certification for demonstrating reduced carbon emissions. In 2011 and now again in 2013 the University has maintained this rigorous, independently certified standard with the Assessors describing UCLan as having made “very significant progress in carbon management since 2005/06, its performance is routinely better than that of peer group members in the North West and Nationally for the Estate”. The carbon reduction agenda is a key part of promotional initiatives such as Green Week and an integral part of all Estate maintenance and improvement schemes. Energy use and carbon emissions are important issues so as to keep our utility costs to a minimum whilst addressing global warming. Managing our carbon emissions is part of our routine focus on improvements, achieving the Carbon Trust Standard demonstrates through external assurance our commitment to this strategy. • UCLan has again been certified by the Carbon Trust demonstrating that we have made energy savings and are committed to carbon reduction. •
Green Team GreenTeam@uclan.ac.uk Greater Choice Than Ever New for 2013 the University has published an Ethical Investment Policy which joins the existing; Healthy & Sustainable Food, Fair Trade and Sustainable Procurement Policies. Available on the intranet these short documents are the frameworks staff can refer to for guidance on improving purchasing decisions. There is more consumer choice than ever before, sustainable procurement is all about making better choices that deliver best value at time of purchase but also for the duration of the contract or use of an item. Everything from stationery items to PC’s to the eggs we use in our kitchens can be sourced sustainably and not always at a considerably greater cost. In early March the University and SU joined forces with the Preston City Fair Trade Group to highlight Fair Trade issues during the national Fair Trade Fortnight. Business Services Manager Andy Coverdale said “This fortnight was the best yet because of the diversity of events run across the city from; themed films, a full sized Market in the city centre to a bake off at UCLan” Andy said “ UCLan were lucky enough to have Barbara Crowther Fair Trade Foundation Director of Policy & Communications speak at our SU one evening, offering an insight into how the FairTrade label is going further to change trade for good” and added “not to mention plenty of free samples of food and drink being distributed across campus”. Following hot on the heels of FairTrade Fortnight the Great UCLan Bake Off was held on Monday 11th March in Foster Learning Zone, judges were celebrity chef Paul Heathcote, University pastry chef Louise Gardner and SU campaigns officer Lee McNeal. Classes included cupcakes, traditional bake, Fairtrade bake, flora bake and a show stopper. The 4 entries in the Fairtrade class had to provide receipts to prove that some or all items were Fairtrade. FM Hospitality & Marketing Manager Jackie Cunningham said “We were really pleased with how this event went on a number of levels; the 1st year event students who helped organise it did a terrific job giving them plenty of first-hand experience and we raised £62 for the Harris Bursary and Comic Relief” SAVING REAL ACRES IN REAL PLACES Janet Breakell is the University’s Print Buyer, this year when getting quotes for print work Janet noticed that one of her local suppliers ‘NB Colour Print Ltd’ from Chorley, Lancashire had made the effort to stand out from the crowd in terms of their green credentials. NB Colour Print Ltd had chosen to ‘Carbon Balance’ their operations with the World Land Trust. Gavin Banks of NB Colour Print said “the firm has always maintained a focus on corporate social responsibility using; FSC and/or PEFC certified and Carbon Balanced Papers from North West Paper, eliminating all volatile compounds from our printing processes and introducing an industry defining waste management programme, but we wanted to stay at the cutting edge” he continued “So we were excited to hear of the Carbon Balanced Publication Printer accreditation” The scheme recognises excellence in environmental performance across the entire spectrum of a print company’s operations and services. Status is granted to printers who have mapped their operational carbon footprint to defined boundaries, a verified third party checks the calculations and this impact is balanced (offset) with the World Land Trust. Gavin continued “emissions are checked every 6 months to give an ongoing snapshot of our development”. Janet says “the great thing is that NB Colour Print don’t built the cost of the balancing into their prices so they remain competitive and this means that I am often able to choose them over their competitors because their operations are carbon balanced” Janet continues “in fact one of their competitors has recently started to follow suit which gives customers like me even more opportunity to reduce our organisation’s indirect carbon emissions” The World Land Trust’s Carbon Balanced projects offset emissions through the purchase and protection of tropical forests under imminent threat of deforestation and the restoration of degraded land. Through the land purchase of ecologically important standing forests under threat of clearance, carbon is locked that would otherwise be released. These protected forests are then able to continue absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. Referred to as REDD (Reduced Emission from Deforestation and forest Degradation), this is now recognised as one of the most cost-effective and swiftest ways to arrest the rise in atmospheric CO2 and global warming effects. Sarah Buckland, University Environment and Sustainability Manager said “The University isn’t keen on carbon offsetting as a rule, choosing to reduce its absolute carbon emissions instead but this is a really good example of some useful action an organisation can take for those unavoidable carbon emissions” she continued “I like that carbon balancing with the World Land Trust is protecting an existing carbon sink whilst protecting species diversity from destruction and perhaps we need to feel less guilty about using well sourced paper that is biodegradable, recyclable and renewable”. Further Information is available at www.carbonbalancedpaper.com and www.nbcolourprint.co.uk Reg. No. 2113 • Did you know that we dispose of over 235,000 coffee cups on campus each year? Why not switch to a re-usable cup? •
Page 1: footprint The sustainability newsle
Page 5 and 6: Green Team GreenTeam@uclan.ac.uk RU
Page 7: Green Team GreenTeam@uclan.ac.uk On

footprint - University of Central Lancashire

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?