Each year Bucks Students’ Union partakes in the NUS Green Impact Students’ Union accreditation scheme and this year we have maintained our “excellent” award status.
Annually a sustainability workbook is completed by students’ union staff to be audited by NUS to receive an award on how sustainable we are as an organisation. This year we are thrilled to announce that we are maintaining our "excellent" award status. Last year was the first time we received the "excellent" award status so it is a great achievement to be able to maintain this for another academic year. This year the Students' Union and the University have both dedicated time to focus on sustainability campaigns and had a huge focus on embedding sustainability into both organisations. Our students have also become great sustainability ambassadors and have continued to push both organisations into becoming greener and more sustainable.
Take a look at just a few things that both students and staff have done this year to continue to drive sustainability here at Bucks Students’ Union:
- This year Bucks SU launched 'Give to Refresh' which was in collaboration with the University and was marked as the first university community donation point in London and the South and the second in the UK, meaning local residents and businesses can also get involved in our community campaign.
- The University held a ‘Love Our Planet’ day, in which they signed up to the Sustainable Development Goals Accord, signed the Global Climate Emergency Letter and announced they have joined the Climate Change Commission. Everybody in attendance was asked to write a personal pledge to tackle Climate Change.
- The students’ union ran a recycling campaign educating students and staff about what can be recycled locally in High Wycombe.
- Our first ever Green Society was set up this academic year and they went on to win 'Society of the Year' at our annual Union Awards due to the great work they did with Chiltern Rangers and Dopplle, as well as creating volunteering activities such as soap making sessions and sustainable Christmas decoration making.
- We welcomed the monthly sustainable pop up shop Harrys House Refills, which sells refillable shampoo and conditioner, soap bars, and plastic free toothpaste tabs, to our campus.
- This year the students’ union took part in two beach cleans. One in Bournemouth and the other in Brighton, attracting the most students we have ever had partake in a beach clean.
- The students’ union has followed on requests from students and banned balloons for student use at takeovers and fresher’s fair and our Green Society started a campaign called #Bucksbansballons which they will be continuing into the next academic year.
- Our 2019-20 Green Ambassador continued their Paperless campaign and we saw another school within the University decide to ditch the paper for dissertations and go paperless!
This is a small sample of all the sustainability work that has been happening over the past year. It is incredibly rewarding to be awarded the “Excellent” award again within this accreditation and we will continue to support embedding sustainability throughout the students’ union in the upcoming academic year and beyond.