Go Green Week 2015 setting the standard in student leadership

Main campus was an even bigger hub of buzzing activity than normal from 9-13 February as students working towards the Leicester Award pulled off a fantastic variety of engaging environmental activities for Go Green Week 2015. Volunteers have always been ready to put in ideas and hours for this event in the past, but this year can be said to set a new standard in student leadership.

Months of planning are typically needed for this annual event but supported by the Environment Team, the Leicester Awarders rose to the challenge brilliantly and have claimed over 20 hours each working on the project.  Their key message invited everyone to ‘change the way we think’, stating that living sustainably is achievable and easy if we make it the social norm.

Students and staff were asked to write paper-leaf pledges for the ‘Sustainabili-tree’ made from cardboard, and try to make one small change to their daily routine and make it a habit.

A detailed list of the fun activities organised for each day can be seen in the Go Green Week schedule, the main themes being Meat-Free Monday; Travel Tuesday, Waste-Not Wednesday, Switch-Off Thursday and Impact Friday. There was so much going on that it even attracted the attention of BBC Radio Leicester and a recording of the interview can be found on iPlayer (01.11.20).

This success and publicity would not have been possible without the high-level of collaboration given throughout this event and involved members of staff from different departments, as well as other student groups such as Hungry For Change and the new Environmental Action Society. If we continue to make a united effort, it will certainly make it that much easier to reach our sustainability goal of a 60% reduction in CO² emissions by 2020.