Watch all-staff talk on doing UoR bit for the planet

Small individual actions we can take to contribute to a sustainable future for our campuses and the planet were the focus of October’s all-staff talk.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Robert Van de Noort was joined by Dan Fernbank and Jo Merry from the Estates Sustainability Services team, who provided an overview of recent decarbonisation work on our campuses, as well as events and initiatives to allow colleagues to get involved.

The Our Future First campaign, conceived by Sustainability Services, is one of the ways colleagues are being supported to make small green changes that will collectively make a big difference. As part of this, Our Future First Champions have been appointed in Schools and Functions to provide guidance on action to colleagues.

Victoria Stevens, a Champion in Library and Special Collections Services, also spoke at the session about her motivations for the role and positive changes she has already been targeting.

Q&A responses

A lively Q&A showed that many colleagues are brilliantly passionate about taking sustainable action and making improvements where we can.

Action being taken in some of the areas highlighted includes:

• Taking an innovative plant-forward approach to meals served on campus and in our new Catering menus. Plant-forward means continuing to serve meat, as we know this is important to many colleagues, but reducing the amount used in dishes and making plant-based ingredients more prominent.
• Investigating food waste recycling options on campus.
• Taking steps to grow more of our own food to use on campus.
• Energy-saving trials this winter that aim to avoid heating empty spaces while being mindful of colleague comfort – for example, buildings will single-glazed windows will be heated more than others. Problems related to the use of electric heaters is addressed in this news article and further communication is planned around this in the coming weeks. Heating issues can be reported to the Estates Helpdesk.
• Investigating inefficient lighting in all campus buildings. Colleagues can report lights that they believe are on unnecessarily to the Estates Helpdesk.
• Continuing with equipment switch-off drives before closures and quiet periods.
• Appointing a new Sustainable Travel Officer within Sustainability Services. Their role will include liaising closely with Reading Buses to improve public transport services for colleagues.