04 April 2011

Vice-Chancellor rewards Green Impact winners

By Dan Phillips

This year’s Green Impact Award winners have been announced during a special ceremony at the University.

The Green Impact scheme is a flagship project run by the National Union of Students (NUS) which is designed to help staff change environmental practices in their university. With departments competing for awards, Green Impact facilitates the sharing and spread of best practices across the sector. To qualify for the awards, departments were challenged to implement a number of easy practical actions that help improve their environmental performance.

This year 26 departments rose to the challenge of meeting Green Impact targets, nine more than last year.

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Keith Burnett, presented the awards which recognise and celebrate the significant strides that have been made by all the participants in making green changes at work.

The Finance and Academic Services team secured the Gold Award, having fulfilled the most criteria in the Green Impact scheme across all competing departments.

In a major win for The University in addition to this year’s awards, the National Union of Students presented a national award to the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences. Following last year’s award success for their energy saving work on dry storage of DNA and blood samples, the NUS has voted this the best idea across all participating universities in 2009-10.

There were 15 additional criteria above bronze level which departments had to pass to achieve the Silver award. The 15 departments to achieve this high standard were: University of Sheffield Enterprise, Accommodation and Campus Services, Social Sciences PVC office, the Medical School, Jessop West, CiCS, Animal and Plant Sciences, External Relations, Finance and Academic Services, Clinical Psychiatry, Chemistry, Estates, the Kroto Research Institute, ScHARR (Public Health) and Development and Alumni Relations.

Meanwhile eight departments fulfilled all 20 of the criteria to win Bronze awards. These were the Faculty of Engineering Office, ScHARR (Health Economics and Decision Science), Materials Science and Engineering, the Chaplaincy, the SITRaN building, the International College, Biological Sciences and the School of Law.

Although they had not fulfilled all 20 criteria for a bronze award, a further three departments were recognised as working towards accreditation, These departments were: The Information School, Nursing and Counselling .

While Green Impact has criteria which all departments must meet, the Special Awards are a nomination system which recognises people's green achievements "outside the box". These were:

Environmental Hero: Valerie Cotter, Arts and Humanities and Dominic Wilson, CiCS. Valerie was recognised for her outstanding hard work in reducing her department’s carbon footprint and running the week long Green Impact exhibition in the Jessop West foyer; Dominic Wilson received the award for his part in energy saving schemes that will see the energy bill of CiCS reduced by £430,000 over five years.

The Special Award for Innovation was awarded to the Medical School for its efforts in reducing the number of unwanted publications received by the school. By introducing a shared news stand for all staff members, the Medical School has reduced its waste considerably.

Closing the ceremony, the Vice-Chancellor highlighted the importance of the Green Impact scheme, saying: “It is vital that each of us does everything we can do to improve the positive impact the University of Sheffield has on society and the environment.”

If you're interested in getting an award next year and would like to sign up on behalf of your department or building, please see www.sheffield.ac.uk/environment/degreescooler for more information, or contact tim.allen@sheffield.ac.uk or energy@sheffield.ac.uk.