St Mary’s Raises Awareness of Environmental Sustainability

St Mary’s University College, Twickenham is hosting a week of events to highlight environmental sustainability as part of People & Planet’s Go Green Week this Monday 11th to Friday 15th February. Each day during the week, the University College will promote a different sustainability theme, from encouraging staff and students to eat less meat, to launching its new Green Funds Project. Veggie Monday will encourage students to cut out meat on Mondays with vegetarian recipe cards, fruit and veg boxes to order and free produce seeds for anyone that buys a vegetarian meal from the refectory. Travel Light Tuesday asks staff and students to think about their CO2 emissions with free bike servicing from Dr Bike, the chance to sign up to the St Mary’s mass bike ride and make a pledge to sustainability, including green travel. Waste Not Wednesday encourages recycling, whilst Switch Off Thursday looks for ways to conserve energy by switching off lights and monitoring kitchen appliance usage across halls of residence. Finally, on Funding Friday, St Mary’s will be officially launching its new sustainability fund, which is available to students and staff looking for financial support to start their own eco-project on campus. St Mary’s Vice-Principal David Leen commented, “St Mary’s is committed to reducing its impact on the environment and increasing its sustainability. This week is designed to highlight and raise awareness of the various ways in which students and staff can become more environmentally friendly. “As part of the week, we will be launching the new University College Green Funds Project, which has been established as a way to fund sustainability projects around campus. A number of schemes have already been developed such as communal herb gardens and a St Mary’s beehaus, and we are hoping that many more people will want to set up their own projects.” For more information please visit the sustainability section of the website.