Going Greener Seminar

People and Planet (P&P), the student campaigning network, held a seminar at the LSE on January 31st 2009.  It provided an excellent opportunity to find out more about their environmental work. 

The network covers both sectors (FE&HE) and sixth form colleges and is part of a national coalition pushing for government action to tackle climate change

The seminar was well organised and it was refreshing to be in a room where over half of the 50 people present were under the age of 30.

P&P has been very successful in highlighting management performance in the HE sector through the publication of the ‘Green League.’ This ranks universities according to their environment progress, and 2009 will be the 3rd time this has been published. It has been a significant driver of change towards improving standards, particularly in the area of policy and environmental staffing within institutions. It is an example of how a league table can be used as a pressure point which can potentially contribute to positive change.

The league table has been a very effective way of pushing universities to review their policies. For example, the 2008 table showed a significant improvement with 71% of universities cutting their carbon emissions and a 25% increase in the number of environmental staff.

An area where the table could be improved is the addition of an indicator covering employee / student engagement. There is nothing currently dealing with this and it represents a gap in the assessment of the effectiveness of an organisation’s performance. Another improvement would be to include Carbon Management as a separate indicator. Some universities are making a serious commitment to this. For example, the LSE employs 4 staff in their environment team and one of them is a Carbon Reduction Manager.

The 2009 Green League provisional timetable is:

•	March 27th – Questionnaires sent out
•	May 1st -  Questionnaire return date
•	June 18th – 2009 Green League published

UCU officers in HE should:

•	Find out whether their institution was listed in the 2008 Green League
•	Find out whether they will be participating in the 2009 process.
•	Check whether there is a P&P group where they work. 
•	If there isn’t one it would be worth contacting the Student Union to find out if attempts have been made to set one up. UCU members may be able to help identify a student or students who could be encouraged to get involved. Having an active student body can make a crucial difference in the ability of the workforce to press management for a greater commitment to environmental initiatives.

For further information, visit the P&P website www.peopleandplanet.org to find out more.