University celebrates Green Impact Awards 2014

Âé¶čAV celebrated its first year of participating in the Green Impact Project with an Awards Ceremony recently. The event recognised the hard work teams had undertaken to green their workplaces over the year and the growing contributions of staff to ‘greening’ their workplaces by implementing practices to increase sustainability.

 is an environmental accreditation scheme run locally by Âé¶čAV’s Sustainability Team, audited by students and managed by the National Union of Students (NUS). Teams can collect points according to how many greening actions they complete in the work place and can achieve Bronze, Silver  or Gold standard. For the first year participating in the project, nine teams were awarded the Bronze Award and one team received the Gold Award.

This year’s Bronze winners were: Dyfdrwy, Library Worms, Cymraeg i Oedolion, Thoday, Third Way, UniPlanet, PVC Posse and Green Collar Workers / Gweithwyr Coleri Gwyrdd. The Gold standard award went to the Fifty Shades of Green team.

Mair Rowlands, Âé¶čAV Sustainability Officer who co-ordinated the project, said: “The ceremony was a fantastic way to celebrate the great work done by staff to reduce the environmental impact of their workplaces. It was inspirational to see the creativity, passion and dedication the teams had put into Green Impact”.

Professor John G Hughes, Vice-Chancellor, said: “The growing reputation that Âé¶čAV has developed over the last few years is due to the tremendous work of its staff and students. We’re very proud of our progress and we’re beginning to develop a national reputation for sustainability for which these awards speak for themselves.”  

Ten Âé¶čAV students volunteered as auditors for Green Impact. They received relevant training from the NUS in environmental auditing techniques, gained insight into how the University is run and developed useful skills for their future careers. 

This ceremony was also an opportunity to celebrate the Students’ Union continuous success with their work around sustainability and their achievement receiving a highly coveted Gold Award in the NUS Green Impact Awards, winning The Ecologist ‘Communications Challenge’ Award, as a result of a one minute eco-stunt film, using the medium of film to present an environmental message. They were also named Union of the Year (non-commercial).

Publication date: 22 May 2014