Engagement and Education for Sustainable Development
Our mission is for all staff and students to be actively involved in the sustainable management of our campus and to feel personally compelled to consider the impact that all our actions at the University can have on the environment and sustainable development.
We aim to raise awareness of climate change and the impact our actions have on our planet through our courses, volunteer opportunities and sustainability initiatives. We encourage the use of Waterside Campus for local community as well as for guided walks and sustainability events for our staff and students.
See the UON Student and Staff Engagement Strategy (PDF, 174 KB) for full details on how staff and student participation in sustainability projects and initiatives is supported and encouraged.
Engagement
Sustainability Champions
Do you have a sustainable project idea? If so, why not become a Sustainability Champion?
The University of Northampton Sustainability Champions are a voluntary team representing our body of student and staff who are dedicated to identifying and implementing projects that raise environmental awareness in all aspects of UON’s sustainability strategy, with key topics around nature, food, energy, recycling, waste, and community.
If you are a UON student or staff member and would like more information, see our Sustainability Champion Role description and Terms of reference. To sign up, email environment@northampton.ac.uk.
Sustainable Development Events
We hold a number of opportunities for staff and students to engage with Environmental and Sustainability activities and awareness campaigns throughout the year. Previous events have included a Willow Weaving Workshop, Community Litter Picks, Wellbeing Walks and Hedgehog Rescue Activities.
Students
We encourage our students living in halls to consider their impact on the environment via an Environmental Scorecard. These are scored termly between the Environment & Sustainability Team and Residential Life Team, those achieving full marks receive goodies such as Fairtrade chocolate. Other student led activities include Hedgehog Friendly Campus and the reintroduction of a previously extinct butterfly to Northamptonshire.
Our environmental students’ most up to date projects focusing on the environment and sustainability around the campus can be found on X.
Keep up to date with events and competitions – check out the Sustainability Team’s Instagram.
Halls H.E.R.O.E.S Campaign at University of Northampton
This year, University of Northampton residences are striving to be more sustainable through the Halls H.E.R.O.E.S campaign. The campaign rewards the most sustainable residence, looking at energy/water use and recycling, with an end of year prize! Reduce your impact on the climate crisis by taking personal action on:
- Heating
- Electric
- Recycling
- Optimise Water
- Environment and
- Sustainability
The campaign is running as an inter-halls competition over the year, with residents across University of Northampton halls competing to save the most energy, water and waste. The competition will also be based on % of residents engaging in fun activities throughout the year, with the chance to win regular prizes and learn more about sustainability through our Climate Quizzes and Week of Action competitions.
At the end of the year, the winning hall will win a Pizza Garden Party.
How to take personal action in halls as well as win prizes this year:
- Save energy by switching off lights and electrical appliances such as laptops when not in use. In the kitchen only fill the kettle with the water you need (the more you boil, the more energy you use) and put a lid on your pan to cook your food quicker.
- Take part in our competitions and quizzes to learn more about various sustainability topics and have the chance to win prizes. We will also be running various webinars and masterclasses over the year.
- Recycle well and correctly by segregating your waste and putting it in the correct recycling bin or putting it into the waste bin if the item is non-recyclable. Make sure your items in recycling are clean (i.e., do not have food or liquid inside them!). Buy items with less packaging where possible too.
Staff
Our staff are encouraged to opt for sustainable methods of travel to and from work, we promote active travel through our safe walking routes and cycling to work through the Cycle to Work Scheme.
Many environmental and sustainability projects are used by academic staff members as opportunities for students to engage in live projects. These projects are embedded into course modules and support students in gaining valuable experience whilst studying. The Up-For-The-Cup Coffee Cup Recycling Campaign was used across 4 of our courses. Other activities led by our staff range Project Awesome, the SDG Working Group which has a goal of embedding the SDGs into our curriculum and research through to sustainable life choices made by staff members Andy Harmer and Danielle Bird.
Many events take place involving both staff and students, these have included a Willow Weaving Workshop, Community Litter Picks and Wellbeing Walks.
Stakeholder
We recognise that we have a vast and diverse number of stakeholders at the University, both internal and external. We endeavour to meet the needs of all our stakeholders through appropriate means of engagement. Our Stakeholder Engagement Matrix outlines the different methods of engagement for each group including Senior Management Engagement through the Sustainability Board.
Current and previous Sustainable Development events
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We have many exciting action weeks and awareness campaigns taking please throughout the academic year. We will be engaging with staff, students and the wider community to initiate socially impactful projects and initiatives, raising awareness of environmental issues such as climate change, poor waste management and biodiversity declines. Our events will include activities such as, wildlife surveying, wildflower meadow sowing, bin auditing, litter picks and the ever-popular clothes swaps. Through all our events we aim to encourage and support positive behaviour change for happy communities and a happy planet.
Events on the way for 2023/24:
- Halls Heroes: engagement campaign throughout the academic year
- Recycling Week: 16th Oct – 20th Oct
- Sustainability Champions ‘Meet and Greet’ : 16th Nov 3pm – 5pm
- Energy Week 27th Nov – 1st Dec
- Biodiversity Week No.1: 4th Dec – 8th Dec
- Waste Week 15th Jan – 19th Jan
- Wellbeing Week: 4th Mar – 8th Mar
- Water Week: 18th Mar – 22nd Mar
- Biodiversity Week No.2: 6th May – 10th May
To find out more about these events, email environment@northampton.ac.uk
You can also follow the team on Instagram uon_sustainable to keep up to date with the exciting events we have planned and the variety of projects and activities taking place.
UON e bike trial scheme
In partner with Smart Move Northants and Outspoken
In May 2022, UON partnered with Smart Move Northants and Outspoken! Cycles to deliver electric bikes for staff to trial for 10 weeks completely free of charge. Staff were asked to register their interest to the Environment and Sustainability Team, and then Outspoken assigned bikes based on the height and needs of those interested, such as folding bikes. All bikes came fully insured with a helmet, high vis vest, emergency pump and charging kit.
We had a total 29 bikes being collected with 4 kept at the Innovation Centre as spares. Staff were allocated pick up slots so that Outspoken could give small group tutorials on the workings of the bikes, general upkeep and allow staff to have a quick ride around to ensure they felt comfortable. This was spread over two days and staff were excited to start their journeys. During the trial staff were able to use the bikes for commuting to work or for leisure, and many expressed their enjoyment of riding with that extra electrical push! Many cycled to work every day and others used them at weekends for cycling trips out with friends and family. Smart Move Northants and Outspoken were on hand to answer any queries during the trial via email or phone number. At the end of the trial, 2 days were booked out to return the bikes so that Outspoken could service them, ready to be distributed to Northampton General Hospital who were next to offer them to staff.
So many were thrilled with their bikes and expressed their sadness at having to return them after the 10 weeks was up. Dr Peter Jones said, “It’s like sending your child off to university – I don’t want to give it back!” and Alison Ryan said how impressed she was that having the power of the electric bike enabled her to get up the hill on her commute to work, that she would usually struggle with a push bike. Our Cycle to Work scheme providers, Cycle Solutions, held two seminars in July after the trial had ended to showcase what they had to offer in terms of e-bikes.
We had a total mileage of 2049.6 across the first round of bikes over the 2 months period in trial 1. The most mileage for one bike was a whopping 285 miles! In total, there was quite a bit of variance as the odd one just used for a few miles while others were much higher.
The bikes were offered to us a further twice in 2023 with a slightly lower uptake but this was due to the colder climate months and staff being away on leave when the hand over date was scheduled for. After each trial Cycle Solutions, our Cycle2Work scheme provider held a seminar for those interested in purchasing a bike. Since the trials and seminars, we have had 4 purchases of e-bikes via the Cycle To Work scheme [staff login required].
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Clean Air Day 2022
On 16 June 2022, the Environment & Sustainability Team ran a small information event to mark Clean Air Day 2022 and raise awareness of the impact of pollution on health and the environment and the positive impact active travel has on both.
The team were joined by External Services Manager John Howes and Computing Student Freya Smith, who took the opportunity to hold a Clean Air” Plant stall to raise money for the Hedgehog Friendly Society.
Freya and the Squad are now applying for UON to receive gold status as a hedgehog friendly campus. As part of this, they have been raising awareness about the importance of creating habitats where hedgehogs can thrive and all the hedgehog friendly initiatives across campus.
UON Go Green Week
21 – 25 March 2022
The first UON Go Green Week took place 21 to 25 March at various locations across the campus. The Environment & Sustainability team were on hand to raise awareness of environmental campaigns and initiatives active throughout the university such as “The Big Switch off” and The Halls Environmental Scorecards.
The team were joined by waste contractor Suez who were on hand talk about recycling and lead a staff and student litter pick that took place in the wider perimeter of the university estate across community spaces. Sustainable vendors also took part to showcase a range of products from homemade spices, household and beauty products to bakery products.
Live vegan cooking demonstrations took place in The Market restaurant aimed at supporting students with trying vegan food options, our Travel Plan Co-ordinator was able to advise students and staff on the benefits of active travel with our Energy Officer giving away free shower timers to raise awareness for the need to reduce water consumption.
It was a successful 1st Go Green Week event for the University, with the next planned for 2023.
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Hedgehog Rescue
At the end of 2021 the University teamed up with local hedgehog rescue organisation Little Wiggly Snouts to become a rescue hedgehog release site.
Warlock and Phantom were only five months old when they were released with members of the University’s Environmental Science subject area and Campus and Estates Services team volunteering to make sure they were watered and fed over the festive season.
Read more about the Hedgehog rescue in the UON news article.
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Willow weaving workshop
In December 2019 staff and students took part in a project to promote conservation and sustainable utilisation of our campus land by sourcing and creating weaved willow holiday decorations.
Students learnt to and helped our External Services team with coppicing Waterside campuses willow trees, a process for managing woodland where you cut down a tree to around 2-6 inches to encourage multi-stem growth, that must be completed every 2 years. Currently on campus we have 8 different kinds of willow, identifiable by the colour of their stems.
Once coppiced the material was transported, on foot, to the Resource Centre where a drop-in workshop was run. Staff and students were able to learn to weave the willow to create a variety of decorations and baskets waste free.
Community litter picks
A call was put out in the early months of 2019 for volunteers to participate in a series of 3 litter picks in the surrounding areas of our campus to benefit our local community, promote sustainable land use and correct disposing of waste.
Several our students and staff as well as members of the community came forward to volunteer. The group worked together throughout March 2019 to complete litter picks around Northampton town. The team of University staff who organised these events worked alongside the volunteers and Olympus Care to litter pick, Delapre Abbey, New South Ridge Road and Cliftonville TBC.
Over the course of the 3 litter picks a total of 367.71 kg of litter was collected. This was separated during each pick into recyclable and residual bags to enable as much as possible to be recycled.
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
We use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework to guide our activity. Our education and engagement for sustainable developments are linked to the following SDGs:
Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
Find out more about our impact on the SDGs