Meet the Green Impact Team

1. How long has the Green Impact team been running?

The Green Impact team was established in mid-2016, after being promoted during the professional services conference. The team quickly achieved bronze for their first workbook submission the following year, and kept going and growing, achieving gold at the 2019 awards

2. What does the department do to stay green?

A lot of focus is about maintaining the good initiatives we’ve put in place. As the department keeps expanding, there will always be people who don’t know what we’re up to or how they can get involved. We just try to keep engaging the department members either through themed coffee mornings or specific events such as the serene green series.

3. Who is part of the Team?

Our co-leads are Karen Morecroft, Marta Santillo and Charlotte Thompson-Grant. Rachel Pechey is our Senior Champion. You can check a full list of our team members on our website here: Meet the Green Impact Team — Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford.

4. What are the main goals of the Green Impact Team for this year?

This year we will build on some of the initiatives and events we started last year, such as focusing on sustainable food and suppliers and wellbeing and nature events. We also want to make sure we organise events and impact on themes that are important to everyone in the department, so we will start consulting research groups and committees both formally and informally to identify which themes to focus on during the next academic year.

5. Can you highlight a recent successful initiative implemented by the team?

We are really proud to have started a monthly zero waste coffee morning on the first Tuesday of the month at RPC, which we started to reduce plastic waste during weekly coffee mornings. We are so glad to have noticed that our sustainable zero waste supplier has been used to cater for larger meetings too!

6. How can members of the department get involved with Green Impact initiatives?

Anybody is welcome to join the Green Impact team, no matter how big or small their contribution might be. We are always open to suggestions and feedback. We look for ideas about themes, positive changes to inspire at individual or departmental level, events, blog posts, anything at all! If you would like to talk to us, email us on: greenimpact@phc.ox.ac.uk or come and chat to us at the Zero waste coffee morning on the first Tuesday of the month.

7. What's the most significant environmental challenge the team is currently addressing?  

As a team, we've been focussing on the global Plastic-free July initiative over the last few weeks: this movement encourages us to refuse single-use plastics and be part of the solution to plastic pollution.  During a coffee morning in both June and July (with cakes provided from Waste2Taste, an environmentally conscious social enterprise), we asked colleagues to brainstorm ways in which we can reduce our plastic usage both in the department and at home.  During our July coffee morning, we also offered preloved nature magazines to colleagues.

8. Are there any upcoming events or campaigns related to sustainability that people should know about?  

You can all take part in the Big Butterfly Count starting this weekend (commencing Friday 12 July).  This is a UK wide survey aimed at helping us assess the health of our environment.  It's a fun, colourful and important survey for us to all take part in.

Also, we've previously raised funds for the BBOWT (Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust) and we very much support this charity.  BBOWT hosts lots of family friendly nature events and this summer, on Saturday 10 August 2024, they're hosting a Big Family Day out at the Sutton Courtenay Environmental Education Centre, the theme being freshwater wildlife!  See more details HERE

9. Can you share a quick tip to help people reduce their environmental impact in daily life?  

When in the office, we ask that you always switch off your computer monitors at the end of each day to save energy and only print when really needed.  We also have some great recycling facilities in the department, along with food waste bins (the food waste is used for energy production via anaerobic digestion), so please do use these bins!