Celebrating sustainability excellence on campus

On Wednesday 29 May we celebrated the amazing 37 teams who completed the Sustainable Essex Awards 2023-24.

The Sustainable Essex Awards programme invites teams to embed sustainability action into their working practices, in ways that fit with their priorities and deliverables. The scheme began as Green Impact in 2015 and has grown into a flourishing community of environmentally-conscious colleagues.

Teams can complete Bronze, Silver or Gold award levels, designed to increase their experience and confidence with sustainability over time. This year a number of teams even pushed themselves to complete more than one award level.

Bronze teams successfully incorporated the fundamentals of sustainability into their work, across themes including energy and carbon literacy, water and waste and recycling. Teams who completed Silver took things to the next level, and reviewed opportunities to develop sustainable practice in their teams and departments, by their own environmental policy and action plan.

Gold award winners bring together all this experience and demonstrate how they have then put this into action and delivered change through projects they devise themselves. This year, projects covered a range of great initiatives including:

• Food waste reduction campaign
• Introducing sustainability into course modules
• Awareness raising events
• Plastic waste reduction and increased reuse
• Clothing collections for charity

Each and every action that teams complete adds up to make a big difference. The University of Essex community can collectively contribute to positive change in so many ways – whether that is taking a reusable cup when you buy a hot drink on campus, reducing waste in processes or embedding awareness into teaching. The Sustainable Essex Awards programme for 2024-25 will launch in the Autumn – contact the Sustainability team to find out more: sustainability@essex.ac.uk.

Our winners

Bronze

• Faculty of Art and Humanities
• Grey – Domestic Services Team
• Orange – Domestic Services Team
• The Pastures
• Blue – Domestic Services Team
• The School of Health and Social Care
• Weekend Team (Domestic Services)
• Wivenhoe House Hotel

Silver

• Caretaker Team (Accommodation)
• Department of Mathematics
• Evening Team
• North Area 3 (Accommodation)
• Ops team (Accommodation)
• Pink - DS Team - Silver
• South Area 1 (Accommodation)
• South Area 2 (Accommodation)
• South Courts A5 (Accommodation)

Gold

• Communications and External Relations Central Team
• DerwentFM Essex
• Essex Startups
• Event Essex
• Green – Domestic Services Team
• Library and Cultural Services
• North Area 2 (Accommodation)
• Outreach
• Soft FM Services
• South Courts A3 (Accommodation)
• Student Development
• Yellow – Domestic Services Team

Silver and Gold

• Edge Hotel School
• Essex Business School Colchester
• Estates Helpdesk and Customer Services
• Sustainability on Sea
• Wivenhoe Park Day Nursery
• People and Culture

Bronze, Silver and Gold

• Essex Business School Southend
• UK Data Archive