February 9, 2022, by sustainablenottingham

Meet the new members of the sustainability team

Over the past few months we have welcomed three new faces into the sustainability team, so we thought we’d give them the opportunity to introduce themselves and explain what they’re working on to reduce the university’s environmental impact.

Amy

Amy Scoins

Hi everyone! My name is Amy, and I joined the UoN Sustainability Team in September 2021 as the new Senior Environment Officer. My background is in environmental policy and strategy and using these to create change within large organisations, mainly the university and Local Government sectors.

My main focus over the next year is to develop an Environmental Management System (EMS), which is a structured approach to identifying and reducing our impacts on the environment, setting and achieving objectives and time-bound targets for environmental improvement, and ensuring that we are complying with environmental law. I will be working towards implementing EcoCampus, which is a phased EMS programme specifically designed for the higher and further education sectors.

So far, we have achieved the Bronze EcoCampus award, which means we have demonstrated leadership and commitment to the EMS by agreeing a governance structure, that we’ve examined the context of the institution in terms of any risks and opportunities, and we’ve considered the needs/expectations of interested parties. Going forward, I have my sights set on achieving Silver, Gold, and finally Platinum.

I’m excited to have joined the university at such a critical time in our work towards improving the environment, reducing our carbon emissions, and combatting the climate crisis, and look forward to meeting you along the way.

Lee

Lee Hibbett

Hello, my name is Lee Hibbett, a Technical Manager within the School of Pharmacy.

I have been a technician at UoN for over 31 years, working in different research labs. In that time sustainability had not really been on the UoN radar, so I’m happy to see that in recent years there’s been a big drive in this field.

I’ve always been passionate about sustainability and two years ago I set up the Technical Sustainability Working group to bridge the gap between labs and estates. The working group consists of likeminded technicians across all fields and departments coming together to find new ways to improve sustainable practices in the areas they work.

This role takes a lot of time, so I approached the sustainability team to see if there was scope for joining the team on secondment. Fortunately, the answer was yes and I have started working within the team two days a week for 6 months.

During this time, I’ll have several projects to complete, from getting all the labs on LEAF (Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework), to looking at lab waste to improve recycling.

I’m excited to be involved with this secondment and am looking forward to seeing what can be done in the next 6 months.

Sarah

Sarah Cawthorne

Hi, I’m Sarah and for 2 days a week I am the Environmental Officer for Catering and Hospitality, with the rest of my week continuing in the catering department as a Contracts Assistant, where I’ve been working for 4 ½ years.

We have started to look more into sustainability within the catering department over the last year or two, so this secondment has come at a great time to drive it forward. We already have many things that we’re currently doing (we just don’t shout about it!), but we also have the potential to do so much more.

I will be looking at a range of different topics and issues such as catering disposables, food packaging, food waste, sustainable food and drink, and accreditations such as Fairtrade and MSC.

I have already been helping to support Fairtrade Fortnight, the university’s Sustainability Action Week, and Food Waste Action Week. In particular the catering department are very excited to promote and share that we have been trialling Too Good To Go (an app that helps divert food waste) at some of our cafes, with great success! More information on that soon.

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Google+
• Share on LinkedIn