The University attains silver 'green' award
Thursday, 09 June 2011
recycling waste
The University of Reading's commitment to improving its green credentials has been recognised by recently gaining the Silver EcoCampus award
EcoCampus is a scheme designed to help higher education institutions improve their environmental performance.
Reading's successful behavioural change policy, new carbon management plan and commitment to making its campuses as eco-friendly as possible are all instrumental in the University attaining the award and going greener.
As well as winning awards, its campuses boast impressive eco-friendly statistics. Over the last year Reading recycled over 40% of waste and is set to increase that to 50% over the next 12 months.
Denise Shearman, Head of Campus Services at the University of Reading, said: "We are delighted to have attained the EcoCampus Silver award. However, there is still a great deal of work to do to minimising the impact of a large organisation that employs 4,000 people and educates almost 18,000 people.
"Earlier this year the University committed to reduce its carbon emissions by 35% by 2015/16 by launching a carbon management plan. This identifies around 50 projects covering areas such as investment in more energy efficient equipment, improved insulation and IT and heating projects. The University has been successful in obtaining over £500,000 of interest free Salix government loans to fund this work.
"Behavioural change is a large part of our ethos to continue to become greener. Initiatives such as our annual Green Week which aims to make staff and students even more environmentally friendly, regular campus litter-picks and active involvement in schemes such as Earth Hour, are instrumental in the University becoming ever greener. We now have over 250 ‘Environmental Champions' helping to change our working environment for the better."
This year Reading won the 'Office Depot Award for Green Innovation'. The project changed building user behaviour by providing them with improved energy performance data for their buildings. Savings of over 25% in lighting and small electrical item electricity consumption can be directly attributed to this work. This project is now being extended across the University.