Update from the Sustainability team - November blog

We hope you had a good start to the beginning of the new academic term. In this month's blog we will be sharing ways you can get involved with our team and sharing our tips on how to keep warm at work as we are now into the colder months.

Sustainable Essex Awards

Sustainable Essex for 2023-24 is now open, has your team registered? We have three awards; Bronze, Silver and Gold. Bronze will remain a specific set of actions, Silver is to create a sustainability action plan/policy for your team, while Gold is about focusing on a project that you have completed to embed sustainability within your team.

There are also specific awards for Cleaning and Portering teams. All this information can be found on our Moodle page.

Please let us know your team name and what award you are going for. You can submit your awards at anytime, we will then audit them and let you know what you achieved. To keep you updated we will be organising an awards event in the summer term, however the date is yet to be decided. We will invite you and your team via email nearer the time.

How to keep warm on campus

As we are in November the heating on campus is now on. We want to share with you how to keep warm whilst you are working on campus.

• Wear extra layers that you can either add or remove
• Keep the windows and doors closed to keep the heat in
• Drink hot drinks and have hot lunches
• Use a hot water bottle but make sure to be careful when filling it up!
• Keep moving – get up from your desk every so often and move around
• Wear thick socks
• Wear a hat when you go out; you can lose a lot of heat through your head!

Heating requires energy. Although saving energy might not be your biggest priority whilst you are at work, but everyone can do their bit to save our planets resources.

To help us save energy:

• Turn lights off when you leave you room
• Don't heat empty spaces; leaving your office and no one else in? Turn your radiator down to 1 or off if you have a smart TRV until you get back, it will soon warm up!
• Keep windows closed if you heating is turned on

Is your team embedding sustainability?

We want to know what other areas of the university are doing in terms of sustainability. We would like to create a catalogue of sustainability stories from departments to showcase your hard work in embedding sustainability in your areas. If you have anything in mind please reach out to us as we would love to hear from you.

If you have any questions about sustainability please email us.